War in a time of peace
by SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Bellona de Poitiers begins her time at Hogwarts as an interloper for her French accent, for her Veela's blood, for the absence of her father. Then, just as she's about to return for third year, her father escapes from prison, and everything goes to hell. OC centric.
1. First Year

**I.**

"You have a father," Maman says, running pale fingers and silver comb through the raven's wing of Bellona's hair. "He is an Englishman, and has been accused of doing great evil."

"Did he do it?" Bellona asks, even though she knows the answer - Maman would not have wasted her time on a wizard unless he had a good heart, or at least, not an evil heart.

"No, darling," Maman says, setting aside the comb and setting her fingers to work, splitting Bellona's hair into two, and then each half into three, so she can twist it into two plaits, one to sit over each of her shoulders. "No, your father is an innocent man, but the English do not make use of the courts of which they are so proud, and so no one cares that he did not commit the crime."

Bellona is six, but she will remember this. The English courts do not work. The English do not believe in allowing innocent men a chance to defend themselves. The English, as any good Frenchwoman knows, are idiots.

Mostly, though, she will remember that her father, far away on windy, weeping Azkaban, is an innocent man.

 **II.**

Her cousins mock her, behind her back.

She has three cousins, twins and one, all girls. They are all fully Veela, pale and silver and exquisite, as Maman and Grand-mère are, as all women of their line are. Apollonia is the tallest of the three, her twin Artemisia the cleverest, and delicate, dainty Jeanne is both the oldest and the most beautiful.

Jeanne is the most beautiful of all the women in their family.

Jeanne is the same age as Bellona, almost to the minute. Grand-mère was present at Jeanne's birth, but not at Bellona's, even though Maman's labour began before Tante Leto's.

When they were very small, Grand-mère used like to dress them to match, in gowns of white satin and silver lace. Jeanne, dreamlike Jeanne, looked like a moonbeam, like a perfect jewel. Bellona looked striking, but what is it to be striking against the beauty of a Veela?

Jeanne is never cruel, which makes it worse - Bellona cannot go to Maman and complain that Jeanne is lamenting that Bellona's hair is not bright, that her eyes are not violet-blue, that Bellona is taller and stockier than any of her cousins, than any of her aunts or Maman's cousins were as girls, because those things are true, and because Maman and Grand-mère lament over them as well.

It's the human in her, Grand-mère sighs, when she thinks Bellona cannot hear, and it never ceases to hurt. If the human in her is a defect, does her family only love half of her?

Bellona learns early to take heart in what few compliments she does earn. She is smarter than her cousins, she knows it, fluent of course in French and Finnish, but also in English and Spanish and Latin by the time she is ten. Maman enjoys languages, and Bellona inherited her knack. Oncle Anatole has taught her to ride, and to shoot a bow and arrow, and has begun teaching her to fence - she is strong, and likes to be strong, even if she will never fly without a broom beneath her.

Jeanne will fly, of course. Jeanne will do everything, because she is perfect, and Bellona is not.

Bellona's father, the Englishman, is innocent of his crimes. Jeanne's father, the Greek Veela who is almost a Lamia, really, is beautiful, and so will be forgiven all crimes. These are two very different things.

Striking and beautiful. Human and Veela. Similar, but not the same - and it is because of that crucial difference that Jeanne will always stand superior to Bellona, in the eyes of their family, and why Jeanne's sharp tongue will always be forgiven, while Bellona's bruised heart is a weakness.

 **III.**

"Tell me, dearheart," Oncle Anatole says, while they are sharing lunch beneath the spreading branches of an old oak tree, trunk wrapped all around with shining green ivy. "Would you wish to know your father, if you had the chance?"

A letter came from Beauxbatons, delivered by a little Merlin falcon, a little Merlin falcon who fought with the neat little boreal owl who delivered a matching letter, in English, from far-off Hogwarts.

"Maman would not like it," Bellona says, fretful - Maman likes things less and less, Bellona is finding, from the way Bellona is growing even taller and is constantly in need of new shoes, to the way Bellona cannot sing so sweetly as Artemisia and Apollonia, never mind so sweetly as Jeanne. Maman does not like that Bellona's body is maturing more human than Veela, that her heart is weaker than a true Veela's would be, that she is not a true Veela.

"Juno dislikes a great many things," Oncle Anatole says. "This one, though, she must accept with better grace than she has the others."

Bellona feels her face flush, and looks down - but Oncle Anatole tips her face back up, and looks her in the eye. He is the most beautiful person in their family, because male Veela are rare and exquisite and treasured, but to her, he is thekindest person in their family, the only one who never thinks less of her simply for the black of her hair and the wizard's magic in her blood.

"Your mama would be better served defending you from Jeanne than lamenting your differences, ma poulette. I will speak with her, and if it is your wish, you will go to Hogwarts, across the water. Is that what you wish?"

In England, she will not be the poor half-human girl. She does not know her father's name, and so she cannot claim him and be shamed for him. She will be a Frenchwoman among Englishmen, true, but she can be just as haughty as Maman and the others when she wants to be, and surely that will preserve her from bullies.

"Will you come with me?" she asks. "As far as the train, at least?"

Oncle Anatole presses a kiss to her brow, smiling.

"Dearheart," he says, "how could you expect any less of me?"

 **IV.**

Grand-mère will not speak to her the morning she and Maman prepare to leave for London, to go to this peculiar Diagon Alley the letter spoke of.

"London is no Paris," she whispers to Maman, keeping to French just in case someone overhears. Unlikely, between the noise of these Englishmen all around them and the deep hoods Maman insisted they wear, but she is nervous all the same. "Where are we to begin?"

"Let us order your robes first, ma petite," Maman says, "and from there, we will proceed, hmm?"

The wizard from the pub shows them through into the Alley, and Bellona's breath catches in her throat.

She has never seen quite so many tall hats in one place before. Her family do not wear such things, preferring cowls and hoods, and those tall hats and the drab colours of the robes filling the street before them are so peculiar that she almost turns tail and flees.

But she is a de Poitiers. She is brave.

"This way, Bellona," Maman says, in English, and throws back her hood. "Stand tall, little one, and let down your hood."

Bellona does as she is bid, and pointedly does not flinch when people begin to point at them. Instead, she locks her elbow with Maman's, and matches her step for step as a path clears ahead of them when Maman begins to move.

 **V.**

Madam Malkin is, to Bellona's disappointment, English.

Her robes are drab, too - plain black, standard issue for Hogwarts, she is informed, and a huge black cloak with plain silver clasps. She enquires after a brighter lining, for a splash of colour, or even a little fur for the hood, but Madam Malkin only laughs, as if Bellona has made some joke or other. Maman is frowning, not at Bellona for once, and she does not cease frowning as they march from shop to shop, greeted by an increasingly familiar combination of awe and disdain in each.

Maman is so beautiful that it offends people. Sometimes, they receive similar welcomes in Lyon or Toulouse, but never in Paris - and is London not supposed to be Paris' equal?

"These English," Maman says, a sneer curling her lip, "they are not used to truly beautiful women, are they?"

Bellona dreads to think what they will make of Oncle Anatole when he brings her to the train, for he is twice as lovely at least as Maman.

"Pardon me," a tall, lean, fair-haired Englishman says, appearing suddenly at their table in the Leaking Cauldron. There is a boy beside him, perhaps Bellona's age, a little smaller than her, with the same silver-fair hair. "Might I introduce myself?"

Maman looks the man up and down with the sort of derisive disinterest she usually reserves for les Melusines.

"You are married to the mad one's sister," she says. "I require no introduction."

Bellona stiffens - Maman is never usually so rude! - but the man laughs. He laughs.

And then he sits down, directing the boy to sit also.

"Your daughter bears a striking resemblance to the mad one, as you so eloquently name her," he says. "So perhaps you would be best served to find your manners, madam, lest the truth of that resemblance find its way into common knowledge."

Now it is Maman who is sitting stiff in her chair, and Bellona is relieved that the boy is just as confused as she feels.

Maman extends her hand, which is even more confusing.

"Juno de Poitiers," she says. "My daughter, Bellona."

The man smiles.

"Lucius Malfoy," he says. "My son, Draco. He will be a classmate of your daughter's."

The boy's eyes narrow, and Bellona frowns. She already does not like him, and hopes she will not be stuck with him too often, if they are truly to be classmates.

 **VI.**

"The mad one," Maman tells her later that night, is cousin to Bellona's father, the innocent Englishman.

"Do not admit to being his daughter, no matter what," Maman tells her, fierce as only a Veela can be. "But your papa's name is Sirius. Sirius Black. People think him a murderer."

Maman takes a worn, folded newspaper from her handbag, and presses it into Bellona's hands.

"This is what people think of him," she says, "but they are wrong. I know him, and while there is a darkness in him, it is not this. Never this."

Bellona reads the newspaper, reads of laughter in the face of all that death, and understands what it was that drew Maman to a wizard. A darkness indeed!

She wishes Oncle Anatole were here. He has a soft heart, too, and might have more sense to give her in the face of this madness than Maman does, with her staunch certainty. Even if he is without sense for her, he might offer comfort. Maman never thinks to.

 **VII.**

Oncle Anatole is on edge when they emerge through the phantom wall onto the platform. There are pinfeathers showing at his temples, tawny against the silver-white of his hair, and Bellona clutches tighter to his arm, in hopes of calming him.

"I still do not understand why I couldn't simply fly you to this school of theirs," he grumbles, pushing her trolley for her and scowling at everyone who looks at them strangely. A great many people do so, because Oncle Anatole is so beautiful, and because of her owl. Blanchefleur is beautiful, and sweet-tempered, and gleaming, bone-white. A curiosity, Oncle Anatole had said when he unveiled her. An albino barn owl for the dark-haired Veela girl - a matched pair, Jeanne had fluttered, and Grand-mère had laughed at Jeanne's charm and wit.

"Please don't be angry, Anatole," she pleads, and he softens immediately. "Please, they will already think me strange for being French, and for my name, and-"

"And for being so pretty," he says, drawing to a slow halt. "I am sorry, ma chouette, I will calm myself."

Everyone else on the platform seems to have family to part with, or friends to greet, and Bellona feels very small, and very lonely. She almost wishes Jeanne were here, if only because she knows Jeanne's meanness and pettiness in a way she does not know anything of this place.

"Promise me something, dearheart," Oncle Anatole says, once he has secured her trunk and Blanchefleur is perched neatly on her shoulder. "Promise me something very important."

"Anything, Anatole," she swears, because he would never ask something of her that he knows she would not willingly give.

"Do not let these children make you feel small," he says, and for once, he is entirely serious. "You are as good as any of them and better than most. Do not forget that."

 **VIII.**

The musty old hat debates over her for a whole minute, speaking in French to suggest Ravenclaw and in English to suggest Slytherin, but never Gryffindor.

She wonders at that - she has looked into her innocent-but-judged-guilty papa, and he was a Gryffindor. Surely these things run in families? Doesn't everything?

She sits at the Slytherin table with the hair on the back of her neck standing on end, nervous of the way the older students watch her - the boy from Diagon Alley is there, mouth twisted and nose turned up in a sneer, and she wonders if anyone else sees the resemblance she supposedly bears to her papa's mad cousin. She prays not.

A tall, slim boy who is as dark as Bellona is pale sits beside her, regarding the rest of their new housemates with the same wary uncertainty Bellona feels, but it fades slightly when she smiles at him.

He is nearly as pretty as she is. Somehow, that makes her feel safer. More at home.

"Belle," she offers, because Maman admitted that her full name might seem a little overbearing with her new classmates. "And you?"

"Blaise," he returns, smiling just a little. "Where in France are you from?"

 **IX.**

Professor Snape is loathesome.

According to Blaise, this is a wholly uncommon opinion among Slytherins, who benefit so much from Snape's favouritism and nepotism, but Bellona will not be moved.

Snape looks at her as though he knows her truth, and hates her for it.

A shame, really, because she very much likes Potions - almost as much as she does Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall tells her that she has a knack, and Bellona is so thrilled that she almost cries. No one has ever offered her praise without prompting before, save for Oncle Anatole, and it is taking some getting used to.

She does wonder - is her knack for Transfiguration a quiet manifestation of her Veela blood? She will never truly transform as Maman and the others do, but she can transform everything else Professor McGonagall puts in front of her without particular effort.

Snape, though, never offers her praise. He never throws points at her the way he does her housemates, never holds her up as an example to put down the Gryffindors. He ignores her, mostly, except sometimes when he thinks she isn't looking, and he looks at her as if she is diseased.

"It could be that he hates Veela," Blaise points out reasonably, frowning over his History of Magic book toward the other boys in their class, Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle. Bellona will not honour them by using their given names, not when they laugh and mock her accent and call her Ball, as though that is somehow amusing.

"No one in England knows enough of Veela to hate them," Bellona says, carefully rotating the outermost circle of the starchart Maman sent last week. It has made her Astronomy homework so much easier. "How can anyone hate something they don't know?"

"Very easily," Blaise says, knowing and wry, and Bellona feels ashamed. Of course Blaise understands that better than she does, and she should not have spoken so selfishly. "Ignore him, Belle, he is only one man. He is nothing to you."

 **X.**

The soft, quiet boy with the toad who is in her Potions class approaches her one day at lunchtime, while she is sitting alone by the lake, wishing for Anatole's company.

"You're a Black, aren't you?" he says, and she can see how fear is making him sweat.

"If I am," she says, hoping that he is not about to tell the whole school her hidden truth, "it is by accident, and I know nothing of it."

"You look like her," the boy - Longbottom? Neville? - says, hands shaking and jaw set. "Bellatrix Lestrange."

"I- I do not know who that is," Bellona admits. "Forgive me-"

"She stole my parents," Neville Longbottom says, "and you look just like her."

The mad one. Oh, Maman! Why did you not warn me that I look like an evil woman?

"I don't know her, Neville," Bellona says. "If I am related to her, it must be through my father - and I have never met him. I am not even sure of his name."

Neville Longbottom hesitates, fear leaching into confusion.

Please believe me, Bellona prays, putting on her best approximation of Jeanne's guileless innocence. Please, please do not ruin this.


	2. Second Year

**I.**

Bellona does not go home for the summer, after her first year at Hogwarts.

Instead, Anatole meets her from the train, and together they travel to visit Ukki, in Finland. Maman wrote and promised to meet them in Taivolkoski, but Bellona will not hold her breath. Maman promised she would write once a week, after all, and scarcely managed once a month.

Anatole wrote once a week without fail. Grand-mère, despite everything, wrote once a fortnight, sending her letters with Anatole's. Even Jeanne wrote, twice before Christmas and twice after, which was at least regular. Bellona knows well that Maman loves her, but she sometimes wonders if Maman likes her, or wants her.

Ukki greets them on the huge porch of his huge house, tall and slim and smiling like the sun, just for Bellona. He sweeps her skyward and showers her with kisses, and then he sets her down so that Isoseta Aleksi can gather her close and kiss her cheeks.

"Welcome home, little one," Aleksi says, wrapping an arm tight around her shoulders and guiding her into the house. "How is your new school?"

 **II.**

Ukki and Aleksi are almost as beautiful as Anatole, but Bellona never feels plain while sitting at the beautiful polished spruce table in Ukki's kitchen. Ukki's house is full of light and laughter, full of a loveliness lacking in the self-awareness that makes Jeanne disdain Bellona's dark hair and clumsy feet.

"So these girls with whom you share your home for the school year," Ukki says, in his careful, precise way - Bellona is not sure how old her grandfather is, and thinks it best not to ask. "Do you like them?"

Pansy reminds her of Jeanne, but without Jeanne's beauty and grace, which somehow makes her more annoying. Millicent took a dislike to Bellona from their very first evening in their dormitory, for reasons Bellona still does not understand, but she doesn't mind - Millicent is as coarse and boorish as those boys Malfoy pals around with so much.

Tracey and Sally-Anne aren't so bad, she supposes - they cling together, to avoid Pansy and Millicent, she thinks, and Tracey has that fascination with the Hufflepuff boy with the turned-up nose, but otherwise she does not really know them.

"I like Daphne," she says, because it's true. She does like Daphne, so much so that they've agreed to write letters to one another - Blanchefleur is their only courier, because Bellona knows how private Ukki is, and no matter how much she might like Daphne, she loves her grandfather more. "She knows how to be quiet."

Anatole nods in understanding, and so do Ukki and Aleksi - Bellona wonders if Maman would understand the value of quiet. Grand-mère would, she thinks, but Maman? Tante Leto? No. She does not think so.

"Blaise is my best friend, though," she says. "His mother is Russian. He… He knows better than the others, what it is to stand apart."

Blaise's dark skin also marks him apart from their classmates, so much so that even his fabulous wealth is not enough to buy him much more than grudging tolerance from Malfoy.

"Two friends," Ukki says, "is a very good start."

Bellona beams, basking in his heartfelt praise, and wishes she could have spent more time here than in Valence before she left for school.

 **III.**

Maman, surprising everyone, arrives at Taivolkoski a week into Bellona's holidays.

Ukki seems most surprised out of them all, running down the steps to sweep Maman clean off her feet, laughing his joy to the heavens - how long has it been, Bellona wonders, since Maman visited her father? Anatole visits two or three times a year, but she cannot remember her mother ever coming here except for their visits every winter.

Anatole leans over the railing, his hair falling like stardust over his bright, watchful eyes, and Bellona links her arm through his.

"I'm glad she came," he says, very quietly. "For your sake, ma petite."

Maman floats up the path with her usual ethereal grace, and Bellona immediately feels diminished.

"Less of that, Belle," Aleksi says, arm suddenly around her shoulders. "You are just as lovely as your mama, child. Your human blood does not make you any less beautiful."

Ukki herds them all inside, to his polished spruce kitchen table, and he ignores the way Maman looks askance at the simple, delicious food he puts before them - lingonberry jam, dark bread, tea and piimä , and then pulla and rönttönen with coffee and cream to finish. Bellona misses the richer fare of Grand-mère's table sometimes, but eating Ukki's food is such a rare treat that she cannot understand how Maman has even the slightest distaste for it.

"I will send you lingonberry jam to your school," Aleksi whispers, winking theatrically across the table while Maman nudges her hand away from a third pulla. "And cloudberry, if I can tear it out of Anatole's hands."

"Hush, seta," Anatole laughs, clutching the pot of cloudberry jam to his chest with a grin. "You mustn't reveal my secrets like that!"

"And what of you, Juno?" Ukki asks, sun-bright blue eyes warm when he turns to regard Maman, who is sitting with her arm around the back of Bellona's chair. "What secrets would you have Aleksi and I keep?"

"I don't have secrets, Iskä," Maman says easily, but her hand drops to settle tight on Bellona's shoulder. "You know that."

 **IV.**

Maman came to see Bellona, true enough - but she also came to make sure Ukki and Anatole did not reveal her secret.

Maman's secret is an obvious one, though. It has been obvious since she told Bellona the truth of her papa.

Bellona's papa may be innocent of the crimes for which he was imprisoned, but he is not incapable of such things - and that, at least in part, is what drew Maman to him in the first place.

When Anatole and Ukki bring her out for a long hike and a longer picnic, Bellona asks them. She does not see why she should not - were she at home, she would ask the same question of Grand-mère, after all.

"Did you know my father?" she asks, and Ukki sighs.

Anatole smiles, though.

"He was handsome enough to tempt even Juno," he says. "And mad, I think, or at least so brave and bold that he seemed mad, to more cautious men."

"Was he a good man?"

Anatole considers that, sipping at the coffee Ukki produced from an ugly flask and watching a goshawk wheel in the sky above them as he thinks.

"He wanted to be," Anatole says at last. "And tried very hard to be a good man. You would have liked him very much, Belle, had you known him as he was before the English War."

Bellona has seen scars of the English War, in her classmates, in the absences that haunt every story they tell of their families, of their histories. The English were left to their war, though, because of the way they ignored Grindelwald's march - until the great, lazy Dumbledore finally bestirred himself to stand against the dark one at Nurmengard, just as the Muggles' War was ending. Bellona would not dare to speak such a thing at school, where even her housemates hold Professor Dumbledore in a begrudgingly hallowed regard, but she thinks that he must be a coward, to have waited so long to stand against Grindelwald, to have refused to stand against Voldemort at all.

"He was very charming," Anatole says. "Sharp, but charming. Juno was besotted by him."

"She did not love him?"

"Ah, muru," Ukki sighs, shuffling close enough to drape a blanket over her shoulders - it is dull today, and the breeze is stiff, and he always worries that Bellona will fall ill. "Love for your mama's people is… Complicated."

"Not always," Anatole says, indignant. "But for Juno, and for Leto as well, yes. Complicated."

Anatole's lover is a sylph. His name is Amand, and when he visits, he brings butter cakes and langoustines and chouchen as gifts, and Anatole adores him openly and without reserve. Bellona cannot imagine Tante Leto showering such affection on anyone, save Jeanne and the twins, and Maman-

Well, Maman does love Bellona. She is sure of it. It's just difficult, because Bellona isn't really Veela.

"Were your father anywhere but the English wizard's prison," Ukki says, "I would say, write to him! Know him for yourself! But your letters would never reach him, there, and even if they did, it might only draw you to the attention of his gaolers."

"Ukki?"

"Azkaban is not guarded by wizards and witches, Belle," Anatole says. "What do you know of Dementors?"

 **V.**

"I have a gift for you, ma chouette," Maman says, on their last day in Taivolkoski. Tomorrow, Bellona and Anatole and Maman will leave for London, so Bellona can collect her new books from Flourish and Blotts, and so she can meet Blaise for ice-cream under Monsieur Fortescue's bright umbrellas, and so Madam Malkin can fit her for new robes, because she has grown too tall for her old ones.

Maman's gifts are usually extravagant and very beautiful, but often they are things Bellona neither needs nor particularly wants.

This, though. This is something she desperately wants.

"Your papa," Maman says, uncertain, "he loved to fly. I do not know if he was much good, but he loved it. So do I."

Bellona will never fly as a Veela flies, but she can fly as a witch does.

Because she is a witch. Not a Veela. It is not so difficult to accept that here, with a shining new Nimbus 2001 in her hands, away from Jeanne and Apollonia and Artemisia, as it would be at home in France.

"Oh, Maman!" she cries, flinging her arms around her mother's neck and holding on tight.

Maman holds on just as hard, and Bellona relishes it. See? she thinks at the phantom of Jeanne who haunts her, always. See? Maman loves me just as much as Tante Leto loves you.

 **VI.**

Blaise's mother is so beautiful that, for a moment, Bellona thinks she must be a Veela.

"Mama, come meet Belle," he says, smiling as he only does when they're away from their housemates. "Belle, this is my mother, Sofia."

She kisses Blaise's cheeks in greeting, but offers his mama her hand.

"It's a pleasure, Madame Zabini," she says. "My uncle, Anatole."

Anatole introduces himself, and he and Madame Zabini chat for a few minutes before they depart, as agreed. Anatole will fetch Bellona's books and her potions supplies and her new robes, Blaise's mama will do whatever it is improbably beautiful witches do, and Bellona and Blaise will sit together in the late August sunshine and eat ice-cream while Monsieur Fortescue tells them wonderful stories.

If he slips them an extra scoop each with a wink and a finger to his lips, Bellona won't tell anyone. She notices the whisper of a French accent on Monsieur Fortescue's voice, after all, and plays her own accent up for his amusement.

Blaise just smiles, warm and bright as he so rarely is, and says nothing. She feels almost as comfortable with Blaise as she did this summer in Taivolkoski.

"I wish," Blaise says, when Maman and Anatole are coming from one end of Diagon Alley and his mama is coming from the other, "that we had somewhere at school where we could sit like this - maybe with Daphne."

Daphne could not come today, though she was invited - her parents do not wholly approve of either of her friends, she had confessed, and wished that she might have more to do with Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson. Old money. English money.

Bellona has, when she can, looked into her papa. If she is right - and she thinks she is, from what Anatole has told her, what little she could drag out of Ukki over dark bread and lingonberry jam, what Grand-mère confessed in beautifully penned letters - then she is old money, too, and old English money at that. She wonders what her life would have been, had her innocent-but-not-incapable papa not ended up in Azkaban.

She cannot imagine growing up anywhere but Grand-mère's house. She cannot imagine holidaying anywhere but Ukki's house on the river in Taivolkoski. Where did her papa grow up? Where did he spend his summers, between school years?

She wishes, just a little, that she might ask Professor McGonagall. Her papa was in Gryffindor, when he was in Hogwarts, so surely Professor McGonagall knew him well? But it is safer not to reveal her truth to anyone at all, even if she is sure that some of the teachers already know.

"We should look around the school," is all she says, "and see if we can't find somewhere to hide."

 **VII.**

The common room buzzes with dirt and slander, and Bellona feels sick.

"Come away, Belle," Blaise says quietly, nudging her toward the door. "They aren't worth it."

Mudblood. Oh, they take it to mean Muggle-born, but it has not always been so narrowly applied. Bellona has heard it hurled at her feet, in wizarding Toulouse and in le vingt-et-unième arrondissement. Dirty blood is not necessarily Muggle blood.

Is Bellona, half a scion of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black (there is a motto, she checked) and half a de Poitiers of Valentinois, dirty-blooded? In the eyes of her housemates, how can she seem other?

And Blaise - Blaise's mama is not so normal a witch as he would claim, Bellona knows nearly-human well enough to understand that plainly. Even if he were not as dark as she is pale, would the others count him dirty-blooded?

"I hate them," she says bitterly. "I thought I was away from this sort of- of nonsense, that I had left it behind with my cousins, but it seems that there is no escape."

Her wand, clutched tightly in her hand, sparks silver and rage. Its core is one of Grand-mère's long silver hairs braided with the white-gold of Ukki's. Grand-mère gave hers to remind Bellona of her true self, Ukki as an endorsement of this path of hers, so unusual in their family. If their blood in her veins is dirty, then she will revel in it. She will thrive on it.

"If I find the fool who has unleashed this nightmare-" she begins, angrier than she can ever remember being, but stops when Blaise presses his hand to her shoulder.

"I'd calm down, if I were you," he warns her. "I can't imagine anyone else would take you growing feathers quite so well as I am."

She darts away to the nearest mirror, and is stunned by the fringe of downy grey-black pinfeathers sprouting at her temples, the long, sleek, blue-black primaries showing through her hair.

"Perhaps I am more a Veela than I thought," she says aloud, drawn back from panic only by another touch of Blaise's ever-cold hand.

"Perhaps we ought to go to the library, and not risk being caught like this just outside the common room," he advises.

She writes to Maman instead of doing her homework.

I am scared. I am frightened. I do not know what to do. I miss you.

 **VIII.**

Hermione Granger is petrified, and that seems to shock even the worst of their year into fear.

"Granger is so smart, though," Theo Nott says, sitting opposite Blaise, beside Daphne. Theo is not so bad, mostly, now that he has outgrown Pansy and Malfoy and their fools. "This must be something really bad, to have gotten the jump on her."

"Not necessarily," Daphne says, not looking up from her Charms notes. "All it had to do was catch her unawares."

Bellona feels a little sick at the very idea - she admires Hermione Granger in the same way she admires Grand-mère's younger sister, Invidia. Fascinated, but a little fearful. She does not know the other girl well, has only ever had Potions and far-away first year Flying with her, but she knows of her. She knows, as everyone does, just what Hermione Granger and her friends did last year.

Jeanne's father, her almost-a-Lamia Greek father, tells stories of Cerberus and his descendants, and Bellona knows just how dangerous the great beasts are. Even without the other challenges they overcame, their taming of a Cerberid is enough to settle Hermione Granger and her friends as fierce in Bellona's mind.

Whatever it was that caught her unawares, or got the jump on her, it must be formidable indeed. And that makes Bellona very uneasy.

Blaise nudges her with his elbow, sharp eyes flicking up to her hair - and yes, there is a soft green-black primary peeking from the crown of her milkmaid braid. She tucks it away into her bag, fretting again, and calms only when she spies Blanchefleur amidst the cloud of owls flocking to their masters.

Three letters. Anatole, Grand-mère, and, most importantly, Maman.

Do not be afraid, my little love, Maman writes. You have always been more than either your papa or me, and that is not something to fear.

 **IX.**

She hits Vincent Crabbe in the face when he calls her a dirty half-breed.

He did not start it - he is not intelligent enough to start anything, Bellona thinks. Malfoy started it, as he always does, cutting razor-close to her secret truth because he knows, and she wishes he did not. She wishes more than anything that he of all people did not.

But he does, and so he has developed a particular skill for setting his idiot friends up to snipe at her, since he cannot always get away with it - Professors McGonagall and Sprout and Flitwick in particular are liable to call him up on it, she has found, they and Professor Lockhart, who seems to have taken a shine to her.

"You'll be next, once the mudbloods are gone," Vincent Crabbe sneers, "you dirty half-breed," and Bellona's fist is cracking his nose against his cheekbone and there are feathers sprouting in her hair again.

Blaise hauls her away, catching her under the arms and heaving, and he and Daphne and fair-weather Theo shepherd her away from the storm of rage brewing two corners away from the common room.

"I am not dirty," she fumes, held back from thumping the wall only by Theo getting in the way. "I am not! I am a de Poitiers of Valentinois, and I am a-"

"A Black," Theo says, "of Grimmauld Place."

That calms her more than Daphne's shushing or Blaise's scolding, if only because it shocks her so thoroughly.

"What did you say?" she manages, more frightened than she has ever been in all her twelve-years-and-eleven-months of life. "What did you say?!"

Theo's smile is an ugly thing, just then, and he shrugs.

"You don't know who my father is, do you, Belle?" he asks in return. "Let's put it like this - he was just as put out as Lucius Malfoy and his cronies when the Dark Lord fell to Harry Potter."

Bellona's father was not one of Voldemort's men, but his family were all neck-deep in that nightmare. Even the mad one, his cousin that she so strongly resembles.

"I've seen photographs of Bellatrix Lestrange," Theo says. "You're enough like her for it to be obvious to anyone who knows what she looks like. But since she only had sisters, you must have come by that face another way. Which only leaves two options."

Maman, in her letters this year, has revealed a great deal about Bellona's papa.

And about her papa's brother. Death Eater.

"My father is not an evil man," she says, fear replaced by annoyance. "Maman would never have looked twice at him if he were."

Blaise huffs, somewhere behind her.

"There isn't a witch or wizard in England who'd believe that, Belle," he says. "Your father is infamous. More even than the known Death Eaters."

"Which is why," Daphne says, "we'll never reveal your secret, Belle. It's not safe, and we very much want you safe."

 **X.**

"A basilisk," Anatole says on a low whisper, when she and Blaise and Daphne tell him of the great drama that concluded the school year. "My God!"

Theo is standing a little way away with his papa, who is looking at Anatole as though he has done some great insult, and Bellona wishes she could draw her wand. Theo smiles, shrugs an apology, and Bellona manages to smile in return - with a papa so sour looking as Monsieur Nott, it would not take a great deal to turn Theo into another Vincent Crabbe, and Bellona does not think she has the patience for any more such idiots.

"Harry Potter saved the day," Blaise says, eyes rolling, "again."

Hermione Granger's friends risked life and limb to find the Weasley boy's little sister, and to end the terror plaguing the school. Would Bellona's friends do the same, if called? Blaise, perhaps, but Daphne?

Theo would not, but that is understandable. He was not raised to be brave, as she and Blaise have had to be.

Hermione Granger glances their way as she passes, her Muggle parents flanking her, and Bellona smiles as brightly as she can. She would like to have a friend as fierce as Granger, she thinks, if only to keep her from becoming an enemy.


	3. Third Year

**I.**

Blaise's mama has a house in St. Petersburg, in the hidden district tucked between Vasileotrovsky and Petrogradsky, overlooking the Neva. It is beautiful, elegant and fantastic in that particular Russian flavour of Baroque, and very well suited to Madame Sofia Zabini. Sofia Nikolaevna has opened her home to Bellona, and Blaise has opened his world, and she has never felt so welcome outside of her own family before.

"The house has been in Mama's family for years," Blaise says, as they wander among the Muggle shoppers on Nevsky Prospekt, just for a change of scenery - they're leaving the day after next to spend a week with Daphne's family in Cheshire, and then Anatole and Maman are bringing them to Paris for a week, and then it's back to school. "I don't think her family is originally from Petersburg, but they've weathered the Revolution and all the mess since."

"Maman's family were in Paris when the Nazis came," Bellona confides in return. "Grand-mère was only a girl, she always says, but she remembers it. She remembers la Louvre being emptied."

"Where in France did they run to?" Blaise asks, in that quiet, intent way of his. "Mama's family fled to their land in the Ob Valley - not far from Novosibirsk."

"Grand-mère spent time in Gascony, I think," she says. "And in Denmark, after the wars. That is where she met Ukki for the first time."

"Did they marry?" Blaise asks. "Your grandparents, I mean."

"Veela do not marry," Bellona says. "Well, not often. And Ukki is even less the marrying sort than Grand-mère, I think."

"Mama has been married… Seven times, I think."

Bellona draws to a halt, her hand tucked into Blaise's elbow pulling him short.

" How?" she demands. "Your mother does not even look old enough to be your mother, Blaise!"

Blaise's grin is as bitter as Bellona knows her own can be, when asked about her too-beautiful mother, and she wishes she could take it back.

"Mama," Blaise says, "is far older than she looks."

Bellona has never believed that Sofia Nikolaevna is quite so human as she says - why should it be surprising that she is also not quite so young?

 **II.**

Daphne's parents are quiet and elegant and hold themselves utterly aloof from Bellona and Blaise - none of this is surprising. What is surprising, however, is how Daphne's delicate little sister fights to maintain a distance from Bellona and Blaise, even as she fawns over Theo.

Theo, who was granted permission to visit at Daphne's, but was refused the right to travel to St Petersburg, or to Paris. Of course.

"Forgive them," Daphne begs. "Well, forgive Astoria, at least - she's only a little thing, she doesn't understand."

Bellona thinks that Astoria Greengrass understands all too well, and she knows that Blaise agrees.

Theo, who confessed to having spent his summer so far at Malfoy's , says nothing, looks at no one.

Theo will not be Bellona's friend for much longer, she doesn't think. He always was fickle. He always was too desperate for his bitter old father's pride.

"What did you have to promise your parents," Blaise asks, "for them to allow us to visit?"

Daphne's cheeks glow bright, furious pink, and she is as determined to avoid Bellona's eye as Theo.

"I'm spending next week at Pansy's," she admits. "But I won't enjoy a minute of it, I won't!"

Blaise nudges very slightly closer to Bellona, and she feels very sad. Ukki will be disappointed that she is down to a single friend.

 **III.**

Blaise surprises Maman when he speaks fluent, accentless French as they wander the Arrondissement.

"I much prefer this to Diagon Alley," he says. "Mama can't abide shopping in London. She finds it vulgar."

Blaise's father was an Englishman, sort of, because his grandmother was English - from Sussex, she thinks. But his grandfather was only born in England. Blaise's great-grandparents came from Angola, when it was still Portuguese, and so his name will never appear on that blasted, beloved Sacred Twenty-Eight of theirs.

Bellona's could, were she to keep to her papa's name. But she cannot do that - even if it would not see her strung up by the families of his supposed victims, she is Maman's daughter before she is Sirius Black's, and she will keep Maman's name.

"Maman would agree," Bellona says, wrinkling her nose at Maman across their beignets. "London is very… Grey."

"London is very boring," Maman corrects. "Perhaps it is different for the Muggles, but I cannot see how - Muggle or wizard, they are all English, are they not?"

Maman loves Blaise, partly because he is so very charming, mostly because he is Bellona's friend, and she always plays up her oh-so-French loathing of the English just to see him smile and roll his eyes - just as Sofia Nikolaevna plays up her disdain for the West, just to hear Bellona laugh.

But to London they must go, and so they rise the next morning at an ungodly hour, and use the Portkey Oncle Anatole procured for them, and together they disappear from Paris and reappear in London - from warm August sun to dreary August humidity.

And to walls plastered with wanted posters.

"It cannot be," Maman breathes, fingertips to her throat. Anatole's hands fly up to catch her by the elbows, as if he is afraid she might swoon. "Surely he would not risk this. "

The wanted posters bear photographs, are haunted by a ghoul who shares a name with Bellona's papa.

"Maman?" she asks, letting Blaise gather her close, under his arm. "Maman, is that-"

"We must be so careful, ma chouette," Maman says, flicking up the hood of her cloak. "Even more careful than usual."

Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle are in Madam Malkin's, when Bellona and Blaise walk through the door, and they smile.

Only Blaise's hand pressed to the small of her back keeps her from fleeing.

 **IV.**

Dementors on the train and her head is ringing with cruel laughter and the special hawk-screech of a furious Veela and all she can she is Theo's turned-away face and Daphne's shamed, shameful eyes and Jeanne's kind dismissal and-

"Belle," Blaise says, quiet and urgent, and she nods once. "Take a deep breath. You'll be fine."

Blaise speaks Finnish because one of his stepfathers was a Finnish timber magnate, but no one else in this carriage does. They can speak freely like this, and she is grateful for that little bit of peace amidst the horror clamouring inside her head.

Bellona wants to flee, to sprout wings like Maman's and fly all the way to Ukki's warm, safe, welcoming home overlooking the river. She wants to run away.

But then Blaise will be alone, and he is already an outcast simply for being her friend - Malfoy has made certain of that.

"I feel as if I will die," she whispers to Blaise, not daring to speak up even in Finnish. "I wish-"

"I do as well," Blaise says, "but we mustn't let them see."

They've always sat in the same carriage as their housemates - it's simply what the Slytherins do, although the other houses seem to behave differently - but it's different, this time. Bellona can feel something staticky on her skin, like Apollonia's temper about to burst, and she presses closer to Blaise for fear of it, and of the Dementors gliding by like shadows of death outside the carriage.

"How are they-"

"They don't care," Blaise whispers. "Or, they don't want to care, and that helps."

Bellona works very hard not to sob, and when the train finally grinds to a halt at the platform in Hogsmeade, she does not even glance back when Malfoy and Pansy and the rest laugh at the way she bolts for the carriages.

Blaise follows close behind her, and very nearly closes the carriage door in Daphne's face.

"I'm sorry, Belle, I'm sorry," Daphne says, clambering in and wrapping Bellona in her thin, strong arms. "It's so easy to be Pansy's friend, but I don't want to be Pansy's friend. I'm your friend."

Bellona curls one arm around Daphne's waist, and settles once she feels Blaise's familiar warmth on her other side. Yes, she still has two friends, and she feels a little safer for having them both.

Blanchefleur keens and wheels to greet her as she arrives at the castle doors, letters from Ukki and Isoseta Aleksi tied to her leg, and that helps, too.

Even as Professor Dumbledore speaks of Dementors and Sirius Black, known mass-murderer, as though they are matters of course, and Bellona's belly flips and turns.

 **V.**

Professor Lupin looks as though he needs a good feed - Ukki and Grand-mère both would despair of him, and Bellona can only imagine the spread Anatole and Amand would prepare for him. Maman would despair of his threadbare, charmingly patched robes, and would take the grooming kit she keeps for visits to Taivolkoski to his unkempt beard and uneven hair.

Maman disapproves of Ukki's tendency to let his hair grow wild. Doubtless she would disapprove of Professor Lupin's apparent tendency toward the same.

But it is not his appearance that makes Bellona flinch, oh no. She knows well enough that not everyone can afford the same luxuries and fine things as she can, or Blaise or Daphne, and she does her best not to linger on such things anymore.

It is the way he looks at her, as though she were a nightmare climbing up from some deepest hell uncalled, that makes her flinch - and he notices. He is looking at her so hard that he sees the way she recoils, and he looks down, ashamed.

He calls to her, as the others are filing out of the classroom for lunch - "Bellona, a moment?"

He is taller than she thought, from the way he'd slouched over his desk. When he leans back and crosses his arms, she thinks he might be taller than Anatole, but not as tall as Ukki.

"I'm sorry if I scared you," he says quietly. "I was just taken aback."

She swallows, frightened, and manages to meet his eyes.

"You knew him?" she asks.

"Very well," he admits. "You look very like him."

No one has ever said that she looks like her papa before - it is always the mad one,Bellatrix Lestrange who haunts kind, shy Neville Longbottom. It is always the worst parts of her heritage that people point at - the mud in her blood.

"I know nothing about him," she admits. "Did he…? My mother insists that he did not, but how well could she have known him?"

"Not well enough to tell him about you," Professor Lupin says, "else I wouldn't have been quite so surprised to find you in my classroom."

 **VI.**

If Sirius Black can attack the Weasley boy who is Hermione Granger's friend in his own bed -

How is she to believe that he is a good man?

Blaise does not know. Daphne does not know. Bellona does not know.

 **VII.**

"What do you think people will say," Pansy whispers, poison dripping from her tongue even as the poison she is supposed to be brewing in her cauldron fizzes into washing detergent. "Hmm, half-breed? What will they say?"

"Shut up, Pansy," Daphne says, a warning - but Pansy never listens. Pansy never notices the gleam of magpie-blue in Bellona's hair.

"Half an animal," Pansy sneers, "and half a murderer."

Bellona's poison is perhaps more acidic than it should have been, but Madam Pomfrey assures them all that it is a simple matter of an overnight stay to heal up the burns it caused all over Pansy's face and arms and chest.

Bellona is saved from losing points only because of Snape's reluctance to penalise Slytherin, but she does earn herself three weeks of detentions.

Pansy moves benches, in the dungeon, swaps with Theo so she's beside Draco, and there is peace, of a sort.

Professor Lupin volunteers to oversee a full week of Bellona's detentions, and Snape's face twists sourly when she informs him of this - but he does not interfere.

Pansy does not speak of half-breeds again. No one does. No one dares.

Or, well. Not during Potions class, anyway.

 **VIII.**

Professor Lupin is a werewolf.

Bellona knows almost- human better than anyone else in Hogwarts, and needed only Professor Lupin's fear of the full moon to confirm the inkling that made her hands itch.

"Half-breed," he says over cups of hot chocolate in what is supposed to be her final detention for throwing a cauldron full of acid over Pansy, "is a word that never goes away."

Professor Lupin has told her a great deal about the man her mother fell in love with, and she is grateful to him for it. He is quiet and kind, gentle in a way that makes her think of Anatole, and she wonders why it is no normal wizard is ever so kind as those people wizards hate so much.

"I don't care what they say," she admits. "It's what they think that makes me angry."

She- she knows what Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick think. She knows they think she's dangerous, suddenly, because her probably-a-murderer papa is loose, and she will surely go to his side. It makes no matter if they think her so weak and fickle for being a Black or for being a Veela, they still think it.

She would like very much to be friends with Hermione Granger and Susan Bones, but Hermione can't abide her for being Slytherin and Susan can't abide her for reasons Bellona doesn't understand, but which probably have to do with how much she looks like Bellatrix Lestrange. They think she's just as much pondscum as Draco and Pansy and the others, and she wishes they could see past that and see her, the way only Blaise and Daphne really seem to.

"Unfortunately, getting angry makes them feel justified," Professor Lupin says, and Bellona deflates. "Bellona, I know it's hard, but you have to ignore it. You've got four more years of school to get through after this one, and there's no escaping Pansy Parkinson."

"Did everyone know your secret?" she asks. "When you were at school?"

Professor Lupin's mouth twists, memory and regret in equal measure.

"No," he admits. "No, I can't claim to know how hard it is for you on that front - but perhaps my friend's example can help you, a little."

James Potter distracted from Professor Lupin's regular ill health by being bigger and brasher and bolder than any other boy in their year, by being so bright and overwhelming that no one noticed the pale boy in his shadow

Which, somehow, translates to Belle and Blaise trying out for the Slytherin Quidditch team, after even Marcus Flint must admit that their recent run has not been up to snuff and some new blood may be necessary.

"I've missed flying," Blaise says, louche and at-ease on his Firebolt - a twin to her own, much to Draco's open fury, gifts from their mothers - as they watch the Beaters try their luck. "How about you?"

"I'm half Veela, Blaise," she says, rolling her eyes. "Of course I've missed flying."

Last year, they could use the pitch whenever it wasn't tied up by a team, but this year, with the Dementors… Well. The less said the better.

"Chasers!" Marcus roars. "Come on, arses in gear, I haven't got all night!"

Blaise shakes his head, and blows her a kiss as he flies off to settle among the morass of would-be Chasers - he will come out on top, Bellona knows it, because she's seen Blaise fly and there isn't anything to touch him in the whole of their house, except herself.

If she was as brave as Professor Lupin says his friends were, she'd challenge Draco for the Seeker's spot - she could fly rings round him with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back - but she isn't brave enough for that just yet. Next year, maybe, but for now, she'll face down Millicent fucking Bulstrode and her gruff confidence in front of the goals.

She quite likes the idea of being Keeper, and besides - aren't Keepers and Seekers the most common captains? Even if she doesn't challenge Draco for Seeker, she can't wait to challenge him for captain.

Daphne, sitting in the stands, cheers Blaise on. Bellona, circling over the pitch like a bird of prey, does the same.

Draco Malfoy, standing below on the ground, cringes.

 **IX.**

Murderer's daughter.

It dogs her every step, now.

She cannot escape it anywhere.

Bellona goes to the Library to escape the whispers - she knows who revealed her truth, and because Snape is a teacher, she cannot hit him or throw acid over him or burn him - and Blaise and Daphne come with her, huddle around her and keep her hidden from the crowds of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors who drift by to stare and revile her.

"I am not him," she whispers, tears dripping onto the pages of her book because she cannot seem to halt them. "I would never-"

"Blaise, Daphne," Professor Lupin says. "Might I borrow Bellona for a moment?"

He's the only person in Hogwarts who calls her by her full name, her right name, and he's also the first person aside from Blaise and Daphne to smile at her since everyone else started calling her Belle Black.

Blaise and Daphne move far enough away that they can't overhear, but not so far that they can't watch - if Professor Lupin upsets her, she has no doubt that Daphne will hex him into next month, teacher or not.

But he will not upset her. She trusts that.

"He didn't do it," he says without preamble. "Sirius, I mean. He didn't do it. It was Peter."

"Peter?" she asks, baffled. "But Peter is-"

"Not as dead as we supposed," Professor Lupin says, grinning. "I'm no longer a teacher here, not since Severus so kindly revealed my furry little problem to the board, so, with your mother's permission, I'd like to write to you - to explain everything. Do you think she'd allow that?"

When Bellona doesn't answer, his tired, scarred face softens.

"This too will pass, Bellona," he promises. "Don't listen to them, if you can help it, and if they won't let you ignore them - well, maybe don't empty your cauldron all over them, but you do have every right to fight back."

 **X.**

Hermione Granger catches Bellona by the elbow on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, looking uncertain but hopeful. Blaise looks poleaxed, Daphne the same, but Bellona feels almost giddy .

"I- that is, Harry got this, but it's not meant for him, it's meant for you," Hermione Granger says, in that particularly English accent of hers, and smiles. "If- if you wanted to write over the summer, this is my address. Um. Have a nice holiday!"

And she's gone, leaving Bellona with a thick letter and a scrap of parchment with an address in absolutely deplorable handwriting.

"Three friends?" Anatole asks, taking the trolley with her trunk and Blanchefleur's cage. Amand does the same with Daphne's, and Blaise feigns insult at being left to manage his own things - all three of them are going to Brittany for two weeks, to eat Amand's delicious cooking and spend time in the wizarding enclave in Rennes. "How exciting. Be sure and write to your grandfather to tell him."

Mortified, Bellona sits on her trunk so she can read her letter without getting lost, wondering why Professor Lupin sent post for her to Harry Potter.

But- this is not Professor Lupin's handwriting.

Dearest Bellona, the beautiful script that is near indistinguishable from her own says, and her heart sticks in her throat as they pass through the barrier.

Dearest Bellona,

I am sorry that this is coming both so late and so indirectly, but I was left with little choice. Remus tells me you have a fantastic owl, but I had no way of getting to her, so I had to cheat. I am very, very sorry.

If I know your mother - and I do, although not as well as I should - she probably told you I was an idiot for doing as I have, but you must believe me in this one thing, Bellona:

Had I known about you, I would have escaped Azkaban years ago.

Your mother returned to France when our war was reaching its darkest days, and I was glad for her - I wanted to see her safe, even if I would never admit anything of the sort to her face. Had I known she was pregnant with you when she left, I would never have let her go, but that was not to be. Perhaps, looking back, it was for the best.

His French is stilted, a little overly formal, but she doesn't care. Comfort will come from practice, and she will see to it that he has ample practice.

Remus tells me that your birthday is in May? I have thirteen birthdays to catch up on. I hope your owl is strong.

"Bellona?" Anatole says, hand to her shoulder. "Ma chouette, are you well?"

She's smiling when she looks up at him, smiling so hard her cheeks are aching even as she begins to cry.

"Look, Anatole! Look!"

The letter - pages and pages of it, covered front-and-back in that familiar-but-not handwriting - is signed Your father, Sirius.

Your father.

"Goodness," Blaise says, peering over her shoulder. "I didn't expect that. "


	4. Fourth Year

**I.**

Rennes is nothing like Paris, or Valence, and certainly nothing like London. Bellona is sad to miss her summer with Ukki in Taivolkovski, but it's worth it to have Blaise and Daphne with her. It's blindingly sunny and gorgeously warm when they arrive, and it's only as they're walking through the doors that Bellona thinks to ask if Daphne speaks French.

"Enough," Daphne promises. "My grandmother was from Toulouse, I won't get lost."

"Ah," Amand says, grinning huge beneath his hideous sunglasses. "But do any of you speak Breton?"

Bellona is almost fluent, but she knows that neither Blaise nor Daphne speak a word, and she can see on Anatole's face that he's guessed as much.

"Oh, wonderful," Anatole says, in French. "Now we have a way to make fun of you without you ever finding out."

Bellona sent Blanchefleur off to the address her father gave to her, with a letter answering every question he asked her and asking just as many in return. She's hungry to find the parts of herself that she has never seen in Maman or Anatole or Grand-mère or Ukki in this stranger, to recognise the parts of herself that aren't Veela in someone who is still hers.

But for now, there is Rennes, and there is Amand guiding them into his beautiful home, and Anatole being knocked on his backside by Amand's sister's enormous dog seeking treats.

"This is much better than my mother's plans," Daphne whispers. "She thought I ought to spend the whole summer with Pansy. Can you imagine?"

Bellona can't, nor can Blaise. Pansy Parkinson would want Blaise if he hadn't so firmly flown his colours in Bellona's favour from the first day of school, but she would never have wanted Bellona.

It isn't a coincidence that the only girl in their class who Pansy has ever reallybefriended is Millicent, who has a face no prettier than Pansy's own. Daphne is the prettiest girl in their whole year , aside from Bellona herself, but she is very firmly old English money, and very firmly pureblooded, and that means Pansy makes allowances for Daphne that she will never make for Bellona.

Oh well. It is truly, deeply tragic that Pansy Parkinson will never wish to braid Bellona's hair and share secrets over sweets, but Bellona will learn to live with that grief.

 **II.**

Her next letter from her father is not a letter at all. Instead, he presents himself on Anatole and Amand's doorstep, disguised by Polyjuice Potion and looking sick with nerves.

When the potion wears off, Bellona scours his face for traces of herself, and finds her eyes, her nose, an echo of her thick, heavily curling hair - but her chin, her cheekbones, they are more Maman than they are her father, and looking at him, she thinks that she might be less like his mad cousin than everyone says.

"You are so beautiful," he says, his voice caught down in his throat with tears. "I had no idea, I swear-"

She edges closer, and does not fight the tears that rise when he gathers her into his arms. She has dreamed all her life of knowing her papa, and it is thrilling to find that he is as desperate to know her as she is to know him.

Blaise and Daphne hover at the door, wary and protective, and Bellona loves them more than anyone else in the whole world in that moment. Blaise has shadowed her from the moment Anatole allowed her father into the house, watching him the way everyone else at school watches all Slytherins, and Daphne's wand is suddenly holstered on her thigh in a combat harness, instead of tucked absently into her hair as it usually is.

Bellona's wand remains in her hair, hawthorn near as bright as her silver ribbons against the black, because she does not feel threatened. Anatole has pinfeathers showing silver-bright at his temples, and the furniture is singing in a high undertone that means Amand is stressed, but Bellona looks at her father and sees more of herself than just those snatches of her face in his. He is restless, right down into his heart, and she knows how that feels. She recognises something of the terror of entrapment that drives his eyes to flick-flick-flick around the room, catching here on windows and there on doors.

She is a Veela who cannot fly. Who in the world knows so well as she what it is to be trapped?

 **III.**

Her father is more haunting than man, and as she coaxes secrets from his reluctant tongue she begins to understand why.

She has half a mind to write to Professor Lupin - Remus, as he insists she call him, and she supposes that she will since he is no longer her teacher. She thinks that her father might be more at his ease if he had someone familiar to speak with, instead of unexpected reflections of himself in her, and strangers in everyone else.

At least he gets along well with Amand's sister's dog.

Still - he does talk to her. It takes more coaxing than she has ever managed before, patience more than she thought she possessed, but she does it. She listens to terrible nightmares and glowing dreams, and finds herself jealous of the eager way he talks about his precious godson. Blaise and Daphne agree that he ought to keep himself a little more in check when he talks of Harry Potter so enthusiastically, but Anatole is a little less harsh.

"Perhaps, chouette," he says, tossing more apples down into her waiting basket from his perch high up in the tree at the foot of the garden. "Perhaps it is simply that he knows what he will be to the Potter boy, but he does not know what you want of him."

His hair is still half feathers, but the hawk-curve is gone from his nose. He trusts her father a little more now than he did a week ago, and has probably written home to tell Maman as much.

Bellona follows Anatole back into the house with her basket of apples balanced on her hip, and wishes Maman were here. Oh, she would drive Bellona's father into a row within an hour, Bellona's knows, but Maman has a knack for driving out secrets too, and that is what's needed now. She's sure of it.

She won't write to ask Maman here, though. She's afraid of scaring her father away, and it's only been a week.

 **IV.**

When Bellona was a little girl, Grand-mère used take her and Jeanne up onto the highest level of the roof and point out bright constellations in the endless sky. She would tell them stories in her deep, smoky voice, fingertips pressed to her throat whenever she paused to think and remember, and then she would gather one of them under either arm, kiss their brows, and sing them to sleep.

Anatole painted their favourites onto the ceilings of their bedrooms, changing them whenever a whim took Bellona or Jeanne decided that a constellation of nobler origin was more suited to her. Bellona's room in Valence, where she has not been in so long, still has the Pleiades lovingly picked out in silver-gold-white against the inky skies of her ceiling. Tante Metis had laughed a little, because what were Bellona's Pleiades against Jeanne's Sagittarius, or Artemisia's mighty Orion, or even Apollonia's wily Ophiuchus? Maman and Tante Leto had scolded her soundly for that, for Bellona and Jeanne had only been ten years old then, and it had been unkind of Tante Metis to be so sharp, but Grand-mère had walked from one bedroom to the next, looking thoughtfully up to the ceilings as she went, and had paused with Bellona, to stroke her hair and sigh.

Bellona thinks of this, lying between Blaise and Daphne on a blanket in Anatole's beautiful garden, looking up into the pink-polluted night sky above Rennes, and begins to cry. When she was little, she did not fit, but she knew why she did not fit. She understood that she was wrong because she was not wholly Veela, with her dark hair and her big feet and her broad shoulders.

She does not belong at school because she is partly Veela, which feels a cruel irony. But she has Blaise, who understands what it is to be half a thing, and Daphne, who as she removes herself more and more from her mother seems to become less and less what she was. At school, it does not matter that she is an outsider within her house of pedestal-dwellers, because she has found her place.

Here, in Anatole's house, with the people who know her best of anyone in the world, she feels as though she does not belong, and it is all her father's fault. She wonders if that is unfair, and does not care. He spent half an hour telling her stories of Harry Potter's father after dinner, before catching himself mid-sentence and fleeing to the spare room Amand made up for him when he arrived, and Bellona has been fighting back these tears ever since.

"Why does he not want me?" she asks, and Blaise and Daphne each turn toward her, laying warm arms across her waist in comfort. "Why am I not enough?"

 **V.**

Bellona and her father have an awkward goodbye the day before she and Blaise and Daphne are due to depart for Paris, where they will spend four days with Maman before continuing on to London. Bellona has her suspicions that Sofia Nikolaevna will also be meeting them in Paris, and that she and Maman will try and convince Mrs. Greengrass to take tea with them in London.

Maman has been… Better. She has been making great efforts on Bellona's behalf, and making it easier for Daphne to remain her friend would be a great effort indeed.

But her father - well. He kisses her cheek, and holds on tight, but he seems unsure what is appropriate, and that makes her feel unsure. Daphne is ready the moment she steps away from him, curling her arm around Bellona's waist, and Blaise straightens to his full, sudden height and scowls at her father, not even wishing him farewell.

"I'll write," he promises. "Please, Bellona, I- I'm sorry."

She smiles, just as she used when Grand-mère denied that Jeanne was capable of bullying her, and waves him away. Amand wraps her in his skinny arms then, smelling of cinnamon and sweet apples, and pulls her into the kitchen. Nothing ever hurts in Amand's kitchen, and she forgets to cry.

 **VI.**

Everyone seems to expect her to know Fleur Delacour, since they are both French, and both have Veela blood. This would be considerably less annoying if she didn't know Fleur, but they are both of French Veela stock, and that is a much smaller pool than Bellona would like anyone to know. The de Poitiers of Valentinois have been established and settled longer than any other Veela clan in France, and she studied well under Grand-mère when the history books were brought out. She knows that it will not take much to remind these wizards and witches that she and Fleur are not entirely as they are, and that they do not like what Fleur and Bellona are, and has the history to prove it. Perhaps it is just as well to band together, just in case.

"I used think it was a joke," Fleur says with the air of someone who would love a cigarette. "But we really are better looking than them."

We being French people, them being the English. Bellona thinks to remind Fleur that she is half-English, but the curl of Fleur's lip tips her off - a tease. Bellona smiles, because she has known Fleur Delacour a long time, and Fleur's teases have always been meant without malice.

"Tell me, Belle," she says, linking her arm through Bellona's and tugging her across the lawn toward the lake, "Do they treat you well here?"

"It is easier for me than it would have been for you," Bellona says. "I'm not as lovely as you are-"

"Pah!"

"- and I'm only obviously Veela-blooded when I lose my temper."

Fleur grins at that, and Bellona notices a fifth-year Ravenclaw boy walking into the wall of the castle.

"I was shy of it, once," Fleur says, "but then I knocked out the teeth of an older boy who thought that my Veela blood meant I would welcome his attentions, and people stopped thinking me weak for being so beautiful."

"I threw a cauldron of acid over a girl last year," Bellona confides. "We share a dormitory, and she's already been giving me the cold shoulder."

This makes Fleur laugh, and every boy within ten yards turns to look.

"Before I go home this year," Fleur says, chucking Bellona under the chin, "we will make sure that you no longer bow your head when walking these dusty halls, no?"

 **VII.**

Bellona has seen Harry Potter fly before - she has never missed a Quidditch match, and she flew against him last year - but that was nothing at all. Not compared with how he flies against the dragon.

There is something mad in him, an insanity that she thinks must come of being raised by Muggles, and she swallows down jealousy like bile at the thought of how excited her father will be to hear about Harry's exploits in the Triwizard Tournament.

She will not wear one of Draco's Potter Stinks badges, but she cannot quite bring herself to shout for Harry, either. If anyone, she would cheer for Fleur, but she is not stupid enough to be disloyal to Hogwarts in this.

She cheers for Cedric Diggory. He is exceptional wizard, and has always seemed perfectly pleasant, from what little Bellona knows of him. It is easier to cheer for someone who is not more beloved of her father than she is.

Harry Potter proves himself mad by sitting down opposite Bellona in the library while she is waiting for Blaise and Daphne three days later.

Hello, he writes on a fresh sheet of parchment, and his handwriting is appalling. I'm Harry.

She only barely keeps from laughing at that, for fear of Madam Pince.

I'm Bellona, she writes back. How can I help you?

He writes down a time - half past six - and a place - Hagrid's hut - and gives her a bright, uncertain grin, before standing up and dawdling back to the table where Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are waiting for him. Bellona and Hermione have been exchanging short, tentative letters ever since the end of last year, and they smile whenever they pass in the halls now, and sometimes even say hello. She doesn't know Ron Weasley at all, but no doubt Bellatrix Lestrange helped murder some of his family, so he probably doesn't like her.

Blaise and Daphne arrive before she can think much more of it, but she decides that it can't hurt to visit at Professor Hagrid's hut this evening, around half past six. He has a lovely old dog she can bring treats to, if nothing else.

"Why would Potter want to meet you there, of all places?" Blaise asks, nose wrinkling at Harry's awful handwriting. "Is it neutral ground?"

"Hardly," Daphne says scornfully, tucking Harry's note into the back of Bellona's Potions book. "Dumbledore sent Hagrid to fetch Potter from his Muggle family, the two of them are thick as thieves - it's safe ground for Potter and his friends, in case we're dangerous."

Bellona quite likes the idea of being dangerous, and thinks she might wear the griffon-claw earrings Tante Leto gave her for her last birthday tonight. No one likes it when she wears those.

Blaise and Daphne agree that of course she cannot go alone, and so it is that she crosses the lawn to Professor Hagrid's hut flanked by her friends.

There are two white owls perched on the roof. One is Blanchefleur, and the other, Bellona thinks, must be Harry Potter's. She wonders if her father has something to do with that, and steels herself before knocking on the door.

Daphne's hand is warm when it presses to the small of her back, and Blaise's is firm when it settles between her shoulder blades. She can do this, if she has them with her.

 **a)**

Hagrid has been unsure about this whole plan, and truthfully, Hermione hasn't been entirely certain about it. She wouldn't have gone along with it at all, had Harry not been so adamant, and even that stubbornness of his has her worried.

Why is he so determined to become friends with Sirius' daughter? Hermione made what overtures she dared make to a Slytherin at the end of last year, and she and Bellona have yet to get beyond polite enquiry in their letters to one another. Ron thinks the whole thing is bonkers, but feels badly enough about not believing Harry over the Goblet that he's not going to say a word - maybe after Christmas, he'll get his spine back.

Harry seems to think it'll be a simple matter of putting a mug of sugary tea in her hand and deciding that they're close. Hermione has noticed that things often tend to sort of work for Harry, in the end, but this is different. She may not be part of Malfoy and Pansy's gang, but Bellona is still a Slytherin. Harry is the opposite of a Slytherin, and opposites don't usually attract.

"Hello, Professor," Bellona says, smiling up at Hagrid. "May we come in? Harry invited us on your behalf, I'm afraid."

Her accent is softer than Hermione thought. Ron startles beside her, looking thoughtful, and Hermione watches him and Harry for a moment while Blaise Zabini and Daphne Greengrass offer hellos just as polite as Bellona's to Hagrid, and are shown in to his home.

"Oh!" Daphne says. "I didn't know you baked, Professor - are those rock cakes? My grandmother makes ones that look just the same!"

That softens Hermione a little. There's no sarcasm or cutting in Daphne's voice, as she's come to expect from Slytherins, only a shy sort of friendliness that isn't at all what she thinks when she thinks Slytherin.

"Do you know," Ron says, still looking thoughtful, "I don't think I've ever heard any of you speak outside of class before."

Blaise settles him with a long-suffering look, but he's smiling a little to soften it.

"In our defence," he says, "you Gryffindors are very clannish."

"And you Slytherins aren't?" Ron shoots back, crossing his arms.

"Touché," Blaise says. "Let's start again, then - Blaise Zabini. A pleasure to meet you, my friend."

Blaise holds out his hand. Ron shakes it. Hermione hadn't expected even that much.

 **VIII.**

Bellona meets her father a second time just before Christmas, and wonders why it is so much easier here, in a cave above Hogsmeade, than it was in Anatole and Amand's house.

"When I was a boy," he says, poking at the sausages sizzling in a little tin tray over a cheerful, spitting fire, "my parents were rubbish. They were everything bad about Slytherin, and they passed it on to my brother."

"Toujours Pur," she says, and hates it. It echoes too much of Jeanne's cruelty, of the careless menaces of her aunts' sharp tongues, of Maman's sighs . "They would have hated me, then?"

"They would have refused to acknowledge that you existed," he corrects her, producing fluffy white bread and a pat of bright yellow butter from his little case. "They tossed me out when I was sixteen, and I was older than that when you came along."

His smile is rueful, and very familiar.

"I know a little about being an outcast," he says, passing her a sausage sandwich and pouring her a cup of hot, sweet tea. "Although it was a choice for me. I know it hasn't been for you, sweetheart."

They eat their sandwiches and drink their tea, and then Bellona draws a neatly wrapped package of macarons from her cloak. Her father laughs to see them, and pours her more tea, which he sugars liberally as she unwraps the macarons. They seem so out of place in this terrible home of his, but that makes a funny sort of sense.

"I'm sorry for how I was, during the summer," he says suddenly, while Bellona's teeth are stuck together. "I know I wasn't- I wasn't what you'd hoped for. Harry gave me a proper talking to over that, and Remus sent me a strongly worded letter."

Bellona wishes she could see Remus' letter, if only to know what his temper looks like.

"Why would Harry speak to you?" she asks. "For me, I mean - I gather he writes to you often."

"Sometimes," her father admits. "But he thought I was being selfish, you see. He has strong views on how parents should behave, I've found."

Harry Potter, who never knew his parents, has fought on her behalf to make her father be better. Oh. She doesn't know what to do with that.

The Yule Ball will, of course, be a disaster in social terms, because no one in England knows how to be charming, and the Bulgarians are going to be Slavic, and the French students will be, well, French.

Bellona's robes are the deep red of low-burning embers, with a handful of bright gold slashes in the swirling skirts. Daphne helps her braid her hair with the long strings of amber beads Ukki and Aleksi sent with her robes, and then she pins it all up high atop her head, the way Maman and the aunts wear their hair for formal occasions. Her arms are bare save for a deep gold bracelet high up on her left arm, sent by Grand-mère from the vault in Valence, and she wears the most comfortable dancing slippers she owns, ignoring Pansy's constant titters at their well-worn condition.

Pansy has obviously never been to a ball before. Poor girl.

Daphne's robes are a gorgeous shade of purple, like a sunset, and they form a beautiful foil for the long, smooth fall of her pale hair. She looks more Veela than Bellona, and for once Bellona does not feel jealous of this.

She has the earrings her father gave her, and feels jealous of very little. Garnets set in gold, very simple, and very beloved.

Blaise is striking as only he ever seems to be, with his beautiful mouth and his laconic eyes, and his nearly-black robes, which shine dark electric blue in the right light, make him lovely in the same otherworldly way of his mother.

He offers them each an arm, and together the three of them step forth from the common room and begin the long walk to the great hall. Draco and Pansy are just ahead of them, Draco wearing what seems to be a very expensive cassock and Pansy in something revolting and very pink, and Bellona can hardly keep from laughing at how unlike what they are expecting tonight will be.

Wizards in England have very little to do with anyone but other wizards. Things are a little different on the continent - Bellona sees Fleur with a pretty Ravenclaw boy, and smiles at the hungry way her friend is watching the dancefloor - and Bellona is ready to upstage Pansy as she has never had the chance before.

The incident with the cauldron of acid doesn't count.

Harry has one of the Patil twins on his arm - Parvati, probably, since she's in Gryffindor and Harry is only vaguely aware that the other houses exist off the Quidditch pitch - and he smiles at Bellona as Professor McGonnagal harrasses him into place with the other champions. Parvati follows his gaze and scowls mightily, and Blaise and Daphne laugh.

"Theo thinks I ought to kiss you tonight," Blaise tells her as they spin easily around the floor - who else can compare? Oh, plenty of them have had dancing lessons, but that's not the same as being able to dance. "He said as much while we were dressing."

"And what do you think?" Bellona asks, already knowing the answer. She loves Blaise as much as she loves Anatole, or maybe even as much as she loves Maman, but it is not the kind of love that Theo thinks it is. Theo might know that, if he spent a little less time with Draco.

"I think I'd rather not," Blaise says, smiling. "I don't know that I'd like to kiss anyone particularly, but I know I don't want to kiss you."

Fleur cuts in then, flashing a dazzling not-smile at Blaise as she turns Bellona into something that isn't a waltz, not quite, and she's harrumphing by the time Bellona's caught her balance.

"These boys," she says, in a weary sort of voice, "are useless for anything but kissing."

Bellona laughs at that, long and loud, which in turn makes Fleur laugh. People are staring, and for once, Bellona doesn't mind.

Pansy makes some snide comment about what a Veela-girl should look like, when they're all walking back to the common room late that night, and Bellona barely hears it. Pansy's hair has gone frizzy and is half fallen out of its elaborate arrangement, and her disastrous robes have become a mess of creases, and she looks awful. Bellona's hair is still precisely as Daphne left it, and her own robes - made for dancing, not to be painted into a family portrait - are still elegant and lovely.

She and Blaise and Daphne lead the way into the common room, and are already away to bed when the inevitable argument begins. Pansy really did think Draco was going to kiss her tonight.

 **b)**

Belle Black hexes Pansy Parkinson during their first Care of Magical Creatures class after Christmas, and Ron decides then and there that he's going to become her friend.

Pansy was being nasty about Hagrid, of course, because of that article the Skeeter woman wrote, and Belle Black took out her wand, calm as anything, right there in the middle of class, and a pair of horrible big horns sprouted over Parkinson's eyes.

It was beautiful, in a twisted kind of way. Fred and George are delighted when he tells them later, and even they admit that maybe Belle Black might be okay, if she has approvals from Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

Ron pays a bit more attention after that. When they were in first year, he tried very hard not to pay her any attention, because she's just as pretty as Fleur Delacour - she's just not as Veela about it. But now, he sees the way she steers clear of Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle, and sticks with Zabini and Daphne Greengrass.

Just Zabini and Daphne Greengrass.

Ron gets why Harry's trying to make nice with her - she's Sirius', which makes her family in a sideways sort of way, and maybe there's something in that unity nonsense Dumbledore's always saying. Hermione's a bit more suspicious, which makes sense given that she's Muggleborn, but Ron thinks they're likely safe enough with Belle.

She's more half-blood than anyone else in the school, after all. Not like she can really say a word about someone like Hermione.

 **IX.**

Bellona sits with Professor Hagrid during the second task, and is treated to a fascinating, surprising wealth of knowledge about every kind of animal she could think to name. Blaise is on her other side, a little slack-jawed with shock, but Bellona is thrilled. Professor Hagrid's methods have always been a little wild, but he knew to excuse Bellona from his very first lesson because hippogriffs and Veela have uncertain relationships, and she's now convinced that he knows just about everything about the care of magical creatures.

He might also be the kindest person she's ever met.

His coat has more pockets than she could count, and he's constantly producing sandwiches wrapped in muslin and biscuits in paper packets and, memorably, a raw steak wrapped in wax paper. Everything but the steak is offered around to everyone nearby, and Bellona is gifted with honey-roast ham, sweet relish, tomato, and finely sliced onion on crusty, nutty brown bread. The best she can do in return is offer him coffee from the enormous flask Blaise and Daphne helped her carry down to the lakeside, which he accepts with a huge smile and a nudge of his massive elbow to her side.

It's a lovely day, even if Harry's continuing absence under the water is made worse and worse by first Cedric Diggory's reappearance, and then Viktor Krum's.

Fleur's is the worst, because Fleur is in such a panic that Madam Pomfrey has to be sent for. Gabrielle remains at the bottom of the lake, and what these stupid teachers and politicians don't know is that for Fleur, the fear of Gabrielle's loss is far realer than Cedric Diggory's of Cho Chang. Little Veela girls have a history of disappearing, and no Veela girl's name is ever forgotten. Fleur must be thinking that Gabrielle's name will be next, because Bellona has thought it and cast it aside - surely the hostages are not truly in danger? Surely Professor Dumbledore would not allow any of them to be harmed?

Still there is no Harry, and Professor Hagrid is vibrating with worry.

"He'll be fine," Bellona says, thinking of the disjointed story her father told her of his escape from Hogwarts last year. "Harry always is."

She cheers for Harry. Blaise and Daphne do as well, and they are the only Slytherins who do. Not all Slytherins are the children of Death Eaters, but enough are, and they tend to bully those who are not. Harry Potter will never be beloved of Slytherin, no more than Severus Snape will of Gryffindor.

But Bellona cheers for him. Harry is brave and has a good heart, and he deserves to be cheered for. He deserves to be treated as a champion just as much as Cedric Diggory does, and so she stands, and she cheers, and she holds Professor Hagrid's hand while he wipes his eyes with a pink handkerchief with white polka dots, and lets go so he can blow his nose.

"You cheered for me," Harry says, grinning up from under fourteen layers of blankets and Professor Hagrid's coat. "I don't think a Slytherin's ever cheered for me before."

 **X.**

Cedric is dead.

Harry had to carry Cedric's body back from wherever the Cup brought him, and somehow, people are shouting at Harry.

Bellona writes to her father, begging him to be ready to be Harry's steady rock, and then she marches to the hospital wing - without Blaise, without Daphne - and demands that they let her in to see Harry.

Fleur is behind the first screen, and she blows Bellona a kiss as she passes. Viktor Krum is behind the second, and he is sleeping.

Harry is behind the third. Bellona does not look toward the fourth.

Harry is sleeping, surrounded by Weasleys and Hermione Granger, and the warm brown of his skin is ashen, greyed with pain and fear. The way it clings clammily to his bones reminds her of Maman after she has transformed, when her face has become human and lovely again, but her skin remembers being something else.

There is a dog, behind Hermione Granger. Bellona doesn't dare move closer, not with Ron Weasley's mother eyeing the green-and-grey of her hat with wary distaste, but she waves to her father.

"Sirius," Professor Dumbledore says - Bellona had not even noticed him, nor Professor Snape standing at his side. "If you would."

Her father is a man in a moment, and he sets himself between her and Professor Snape as if on instinct.

Ah. Professor Snape looks so fantastically full of hatred that she can now fill in the gaps in her father's stories of his escape. She can also understand why Professor Snape has never, in four years, awarded her a single point.

Mrs. Weasley is screaming. Bellona's father keeps his arm across her, guarding her, and puts her hand on the crook of his elbow.

"Papa," she says, "please."

He subsides. Harry is awake, Bellona notices, and she looks to him and to Ron Weasley and to Hermione Granger rather than watching the grovelling Professor Dumbledore is forcing on her father.

Hermione is watching her back. Or rather, Hermione is watching the way Bellona is holding onto her father's arm, and the way he's curling himself around her. Bellona knows what they look like, because she has seen Tante Leto stand this way with Jeanne, or Tante Metis with the twins.

She has stood like this with Maman, sometimes, when someone dares threaten or insult her. It seems only right to face a threat like Professor Snape with Papa before her.

"If the Dark Lord has returned," Bellona says, sitting in the window with Papa's arms wrapped tight around her, "is it war?"

"It will be," Papa says, kissing her temple. "But we will fight him every step of the way."

Bellona curls closer to him, cold under her skin, and wonders how she is to fight. She will not see a monster like this Voldemort rise - she has seen the scars that Grindelwald left in Europe, in her family and in families like hers right across the Europe. She knows that families here are just as badly damaged by Voldemort's terror, and would spare people the pain she sees in Grand-mère's eyes whenever her sister is mentioned, or Ukki and Aleksi's silences whenever it is their mother's birthday.

People came from all over Europe to fight Grindelwald. A shame that Albus Dumbledore did not come sooner from England. Perhaps he will stir himself earlier for this war, and tarry less than he has in the past.

Papa kisses her temple again, and sighs.

"We fought the last war so our children would never have to fight," he says. "I'm sorry that we failed you, Belle."

 **c)**

Harry is saying goodbye to Ron and Hermione when Bellona Black appears, tugging on his sleeve and smiling. He doesn't think he's ever seen her smile before, not really, so he smiles back.

"Papa promises that you won't be left with your family all summer," she assures him, glancing over his shoulder to the Dursleys. Her family - her mother, obviously, because Bellona's the image of her except for her colouring, and the uncle she always talks about - are standing a little way away, out of place in a wholly different way than the Weasleys. "He says Professor Dumbledore's intentions are to be trusted, but if it seems that this is not so, write to me. Blaise and Daphne and I are spending the summer together, but my uncle, Anatole-"

Here, the very handsome man standing with Bellona's mother waves.

"- will fetch you, if you need help."

"Thank you," he says, for want of anything else. Bellona's distrust of Dumbledore is something he's noticed more than once in the time they've come to know one another, and he's wondered about it sometimes. "Bellona-"

"Write to me even if you are not in mortal danger, Harry Potter," she says with a fresh smile. "Your owl will find me no matter where I am."

"You travel much over the summer, Belle?" Ron asks, throwing his arm over Harry's shoulders. "Didn't think you rich types did much at all on holidays."

"I'll be moving around a lot this summer," she says. "My grandfather's house, my grandmother's, Blaise's mother's, and perhaps even Daphne's parents' house, if her mother can suffer a dirty half-breed like me near her beautiful home."

Bellona's eyes are dark, like Sirius', but they're bright like nothing Harry's ever known. She looks very dangerous, and he's glad that they've become friends.


	5. Fifth Year

**I.**

Valence is not changed at all when Bellona arrives. The sunflowers stretch south and west beyond the inner garden walls, and the scent of blooming lavender is heavy in the air. She is blessed, she knows, to have arrived on such a beautiful day, and stops a moment at the top of the path to take it all in.

"I hadn't realised how much I missed it," she says, automatically in English, and Maman wraps her arm tight around Bellona's shoulders. "Oh, Maman-"

"I know, chouette," Maman assures her, in French. "I do know, I promise. Come, your grandmother is waiting."

It has been four years since Bellona saw her grandmother, and she does not even care that the wild cry she looses before tearing down the path into Grand-mère's waiting arms is uncouth and brash. She has missed how the smooth gravel of the path crunches under her and Grand-mère's feet as they run to meet one another, has missed being near Maman and Grand-mère and even the cousins and the aunts. She has missed the camellias along the path, and the snowy clematis overhanging the archway into the kitchen garden. She's missed the rhythm of French being spoken all around her, and Maman's laughter, and the fierce strength of Grand-mère's embrace.

"Welcome home, ma petite," Grand-mère says between kisses. "Oh, welcome, _welcome_ home."

* * *

Jeanne is sitting on Bellona's bed when she reaches her room, which she did not expect.

"I have been thinking," Jeanne says, in her voice like silver bells, "that I owe you an apology, Belle. The twins as well, but they are still as they were."

Jeanne, Bellona knows, has spent much of the past two years in Greece, with her dangerous, too-beautiful papa. It seems that knowing her other family has changed Jeanne as much as Hogwarts has changed Bellona. Jeanne looks as nervous as a pig in a butcher's, her delicate little hands clasped in her lap and her teeth digging hard into her perfect lip. She looks much the same - lovelier, if anything, growing into herself just as Bellona has grown taller and stronger and freckly - but there is a sharpness gone from her gaze since last Bellona saw her.

"No apologies," Bellona says, sitting down beside Jeanne. "But maybe we can change things a little, while I'm here. And maybe- maybe you could come to Taivolkovski with me?"

Ukki has always made more a fuss of Bellona than the others because Grand-mère didn't, but he loves all of them the same. He and Aleksi will go out of their way to welcome Jeanne, if only because her visit is unexpected and they love her.

Jeanne takes Bellona's hands in hers and smiles, and they are sharing uncertain stories of lessons in Athens and classes in Hogwarts when Anatole comes to fetch them for dinner.

* * *

Ukki and Aleksi are even more excited than usual when they see that Bellona is joined not only by Anatole but also by Jeanne. Even still, it is Bellona who is kept closest under Ukki's arm, Bellona who is given the first cut of bread, the sweetest berries, the first kisses and the longest embraces. Jeanne's Finnish isn't quite as fluent as Bellona's, but it will be by the end of their stay.

"Tell me, Bellona," Ukki says, while Jeanne and Anatole are clambering up a hill away beyond where they have laid out their picnic, "are you happier now than you were when last we ate on these rocks?"

She thinks about Blaise and Daphne, and about Harry and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, about Professor Hagrid and Remus, and about Papa. Hogwarts is not so safe as it was, but she is stronger than she has ever been, and she can bear any danger.

She looks at Jeanne and Anatole and Aleksi, away high on the rocks, and settles comfortably under Ukki's arm. She is wearing a long, thin chain of silver and pearls under her blouse, a gift from the treasury at Valence by way of Grand-mere's jewellery box. Maman gave her a bracelet as well, one that her grandmother gave her when she was Bellona's age, a delicate thing of dark sapphires and bright blue topazes set in silver.

"Yes, Ukki," she says, turning to kiss his cheek, which is smooth but somehow older than it was when last they sat here. "I am happier."

 **II.**

Blaise's mama has them not in Russia this year but on a whirlwind tour of Eastern Europe - here Riga, there Kiev, next Tallinn, now Bratislava. Madame Sofia is radiant everywhere they go, and Daphne, unused to travel, shines with a glow of discovery that makes her even more beautiful than usual.

Blaise leans on the bench he and Bellona have claimed as their own, and together they watch Madame Sofia and Daphne flit from shop to shop on the other side of the square, fair and lovely together. Bellona would be jealous of how immediately close Daphne has become with Blaise's mama, but she knows that it is not the same as her own closeness with Madame Sophia. Daphne, after all, is _normal._

"Things will be different this year," Blaise says, soft and quiet. "If what Potter said is true-"

"My papa believes him," Bellona says, leaning her head against Blaise's shoulder. "And more importantly, Remus believes him - I cannot see that they both would believe such a terrible lie if there was any reason at all to doubt."

"I will take Remus' word for it," Blaise says, grinning when she casts a sour glance up at him. "Can you blame me for being sceptical, Belle? It will change the world if what Harry says is true."

Not the whole world, necessarily, or at least - not yet. Bellona believes Harry because she cannot see a world in which he would lie, not about this. Not knowing how little anyone wants to hear it. There is no other explanation for Harry's terror, for Cedric's death, for Malfoy's terrified, terrible joy.

"Then we will have to stand against it, I suppose," she says, "and do what we can to spare Daphne those choices."

* * *

Daphne's mama revokes her invitation for Blaise and Bellona to visit the day before they are due to arrive. Daphne is mortified and angry, but she is also helpless. There is no point in joining her outrage, though, and so Bellona finds herself merely… resigned.

"A sign of what is to come," Blaise says quietly, his arm pressed to Bellona's, their hands back to back and unwavering. Even if Daphne is forced away from them, well, she will be safer on the inside, and Bellona will still have Blaise. If she is very lucky and very careful, she will also have Harry, and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, and she has her family in Valence and her family in Taivolkovski, and she has her papa and Remus. That will have to be enough to see her through. "Are you away home then, Belle? Or have you alternate accommodations here in England? Mama was afraid this would happen, so she wanted you to know that you're welcome to stay with me in Belgravia, if you wish it."

Blaise's mama keeps a beautiful house in Belgravia that she only spends half a dozen nights in each year, and Bellona would usually jump at the chance to visit it - she and Maman and Anatole spent Christmas there with Blaise and Madame Sophia just last year.

But she has a letter from her papa, with an address and an invitation, so she kisses Blaise's cheek and gets off the Knight Bus several stops ahead of him.

"Grimmauld Place!" the conductor hollers, and Blaise's scepticism is matched only by Bellona's excitement at spending some time with her papa.

 **III.**

"The new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Bellona," Remus says quietly while they're making little cheese tartlets to perk up Papa's spirits, while Harry is having his day at court. Mrs Weasley still does not really like Bellona, and now that Remus and Papa have explained to her how Mrs Weasley lost her brothers, she cannot find fault in that.

"What about them?" Bellona asks, pinching together the pastry with carefully floured fingers. "Do we even know who it will be yet? I did not think so."

"Nothing has been confirmed," Remus says, dabbing a little egg wash onto each tartlet with a deft hand - the tartlets are for him as much as for Papa, because Remus never looks to have eaten enough. Ukki has already sent huge baskets of black bread and cloudberry jam, because everyone likes Aleksi's cloudberry jam, and Anatole and Amand have promised more tempting treats. Maman has promised to bring enough food to feed a garrison when she arrives next week, and Bellona can hardly wait - she'll absolutely _stuff_ Remus and Papa then, and Maman will help.

"Nothing has been confirmed," Remus says, "but there's enough talk that it's almost certain. The others should be fine, but you'll need to be careful, Bellona."

"Why me specifically, Remus?" she asks, not minding what he's saying all that much because Kreacher is grumbling something about dirty half-breeds sullying Mistress' kitchen, and the oven is scalding hot when she opens the door.

"Her name is Dolores Umbridge, Belle," he says, "and she's never been fond of the likes of you and me."

* * *

Maman arrives wearing all black, save for a snowy silk scarf draped artfully around her neck. She is a true de Poitiers today, with their ancestress' famed beauty and her own haughty manner. Bellona wonders what about Maman Mrs Weasley will dislike, and is not even sorry for it.

The Weasleys, after all, have made it clear to her that she is a _Slytherin_ , and that counts more against her than Papa does in her favour. Oh, they are polite to her, and sometimes even include her in the teasing at the dinner table, but when they and Harry and Hermione are clustered together in one of the drawing rooms, they fall silent as soon as Bellona walks in. She knows when she is unwanted, and will not feel bad for wanting to flaunt her beautiful, brilliant mother at them just a little.

"This place is a hovel," Maman says to Papa by way of greeting, softening the blow with a lingering kiss to his cheek. "And you look revolting. When did you last cut your hair?"

"Direct as ever, Juno," Papa says, but his fond smile is proof - to Bellona, at least - that he knows that Maman's directness is a sign of her concern. "You're well, I trust?"

"Better for having our girl," Maman says, which makes Bellona's face heat. "Ah! Chouette! Come, come, let me see you! Has London smothered you yet?"

Bellona rises up on her toes to kiss Maman's cheek and is rewarded with a fierce embrace that she is only too glad to return. She herself is dressed all in black and white today too, crisp and sharp, and she _does_ feel a little guilty for that. It is unseemly of her to show off that she has wealth twice over, when she knows that the shabbiness of the Weasleys' clothes is not because Mr Weasley is incapable of doing well by his family. Rather, it is because of the likes of Lucius Malfoy preventing him from doing so.

"Having her here has been more wonderful than I have words to express, Juno," Papa says, wrapping his arm around her waist when Maman releases her just a little. "I think we've gotten along well, haven't we, sweetheart?"

"Better than expected," Bellona says, more frank than usual for having Maman here. "I- that is, I only thought-"

"That I'd be as great a fool as I was last summer?" Papa says, grinning as he only usually does with Remus. "I've learned my lesson, poppet - no more of that. I've even been working on my French, haven't I?"

"Your accent is somehow _worse_ than it used to be," Maman says, "but that can't be helped, I suppose - Bellona, mon ange, could you fetch what you need for the day? I would speak with your papa alone, if I may."

"Of course, Maman," she says, kissing them both on the cheek again before darting up to her bedroom. It shares a wall with Papa's, and for a heart-stopping moment, she'd been afraid that she had been given his dead brother's room, until she saw the plaque on her uncle's tomb.

She does not need much - she will be coming back here tonight, after all - but up here, where it's quiet, she can hear Harry and the others whispering to each other.

Her name comes up, and she forces herself not to be hurt that they are talking about her. It matters little - she will have Blaise at school, and Maman and Papa and Anatole and Ukki and even Jeanne are only ever a letter away.

When she returns to the parlour, Maman and Papa are sitting close together, heads close and faces dire serious.

"Your papa will accompany us today, Bellona," Maman declares - in English, for eavesdropping ears. "Just you and I and him, how does that sound?"

Papa looks ecstatic with happiness, and Bellona cannot help but feel the same. Doubtless, he will come along as a dog, but he will be there, and they will be almost normal.

"Wonderful, Maman," she says, because it is, and because she is allowed this just as much as Ginny Weasley is.

* * *

Blaise and Madam Sophia are at Monsieur Fortescue's shop, talking in low voices over enormous Knickerbocker Glories and looking outrageously fashionable. Blaise leaps out of his seat to sweep Bellona clean off her feet, and Maman and Madam Sofia exchange a more reserved hello.

Blaise sets Bellona down with a kiss to her hair and startles a little to notice the enormous black dog sitting at her feet. Papa's tongue is lolling out his mouth, very red against his dark, dark fur, and Bellona gives him her best quelling look.

"Hello, Mr Black," Blaise says quietly. "How lovely to finally meet you."

Papa stays along with her and Blaise while Maman and Madam Sofia do the serious shopping - Madam Malkin objects to his following them in the door, so he sits politely in the sunshine outside, moving only to snap at the Malfoys when they pass him by.

"Oh," Draco says when he sees them. "It's _you."_

He's dressed all in black, like a priest who's forgotten his dog collar, and his mother is behind him. Bellona can see her own face in Narcissa Black's, but is surprised to find that she's grown enough like Maman that she no longer looks entirely like a Black. That is a relief. It means that she might be able to escape being tied to this Dark Lord of theirs even by association.

"Nice to see you as well, Draco," Blaise says, rolling his eyes as one of Madam Malkin's assistants pins his sleeve. "Madam Malfoy, how pleasant - you're keeping well?"

"Mr Zabini, is it?" Narcissa Black asks. "I am well, thank you. And you must be Miss de Poitiers - hello, cousin."

"Madam Malfoy," Bellona says, dipping her head. "I had a letter from your sister just last week - she seemed well."

The twist of Narcissa Black's mouth means she knows which sister Bellona means, which will please Aunt Dromeda enormously. Papa, through Remus, asked her to reach out to Bellona, and her letters have been vivid and funny. Bellona had been thrilled by them, and by this new connection. She is always pleased to find more family.

"You must favour your mother's family in looks, Miss de Poitiers," Madam Malfoy says coolly, "but you remind me very much of your father in manner. He was an insolent brat, too."

Papa, outside the partly open door, growls. Narcissa Black jumps.

* * *

They are returned to Monsieur Fortescue's shop, sitting with him under one of his striped umbrellas while he tells them stories of his travels in Persia, as was, researching as much about his craft as he could - because ice-cream, he tells them, originated with the Persians - when their mothers find them. And not just Blaise and Bellona's mothers, but Ron Weasley's mother and all her assorted children.

Dora is with them as well, though, and she plants herself firmly beside Bellona with a look _daring_ anyone to say a word.

"Wotcher, Belle," Dora says, taking a spoon to Bellona's summer berry sundae. "Good day?"

Harry smiles at her when she looks up, but she is still angry with him. He has spent plenty of time with Papa since his arrival at Grimmauld Place, but has been as silent as the Weasleys in Bellona's presence. She's made do with Papa and Remus and Dora, but Remus and Dora are often away on secret errands or at work. Papa's moods are mercurial at best, and while he _has_ tried very hard…

Bellona has missed Blaise and Daphne more than she can say. She has missed Jeanne, too, since their reconciliation, and she has even missed being ignored in the common room, because that is better than being suspected of things she has not done.

 **IV.**

Anatole and Amand are at the station to see her off, and she runs the full length of the platform to Anatole, leaving Maman with her trolley.

Anatole and Amand, Maman and Papa, Dora and Remus. Oh, Dora and Remus are there to see Harry safe, under orders from Dumbledore, but Dora kisses Bellona's cheeks the same as Amand does, and that is enough.

Remus presses a little envelope into her hand right before she is to board the train, names and addresses for those people who will help her if the rumours are true, and Dolores Umbridge is to be given authority in Hogwarts. He is more worried for her than anyone, terrified of what this woman might do with Bellona under her power, and so he is the only one who has thought to arm her.

She knows already that she will not be able to rely on Professors Dumbledore or Snape for aid, should she need it.

* * *

She and Blaise and Daphne are making their way toward the carriage where Malfoy and the rest are sitting, where they always sit, when a door opens.

"Hey, Belle," Harry says. "Want to sit with us for a change?"

Bellona stops, more from surprise than anything. After shutting her out all summer, he would invite her in now? When he is away from the censure of the woman he has replaced his mother with?

"My friends have already invited me to sit with them," she says, "so no."

Harry looks so shocked that she would laugh, if she was not annoyed. Can he truly be so damnably dense?

* * *

Dolores Umbridge makes Bellona's skin crawl, but Pansy looks thrilled - a woman with the same taste and look as her at the staff table, how could she not be?

"I don't like this at all," Blaise says, shifting to rest his arm against Bellona's. "Not one bit."

Daphne looks surprised by the degree of their upset, but it's alright for Daphne - she's human.

 **V.**

Every class with Dolores Umbridge, a teacher who does not believe in practical instruction, is a nightmare. Bellona has become used to snide comments - from Pansy, mostly, although Millicent is no slouch - but she is _not_ used to them coming from teachers.

Dolores Umbridge treats Bellona as Professor Snape treats the Gryffindors, though, constantly picking on her, using that odd accent and old-fashioned words so that Bellona sometimes misses her meaning. Blaise and Daphne do what they can to help, but Pansy's delight in how bizarrely unfair Dolores Umbridge is to Bellona, and _only_ to Bellona, leaves more of a mark than she'd like to admit.

And then, halfway to Halloween, it becomes worse.

"I have been told that one of our students has a _special_ wand," she says, in her sickly sweet voice, her fat hands folded together and her ugly face twisted into something like a smile. "A very special wand, not made by Mr Ollivander."

Bellona and Blaise are the only students in the room whose wands were not made in London. Blaise's is bright, pale poplar, with a core of alkonost feather, made by a tiny old woman with the thickest glasses Bellona has ever seen in Petersburg. Bellona's, of course, is hawthorn, with a core made of one of Ukki's golden-white hairs braided with one of Grand-mère's silver, the one thing Maman insisted on having made in le vingt-et-unième arrondissement instead of Diagon Alley. Bellona can guess which of them Umbridge means.

"Step forward, Miss Black," she says, sweet like burned caramel. "Now, please."

Bellona does not step forward. She has never answered to that name before, and she will not do so now. Not for this woman.

"Now, Miss Black!" she says, a little sharper this time. "We don't like lollygaggers in this classroom, dear!"

"There's no one by that name here, Professor," Daphne says in a moment of staggering bravery. Bellona's jaw must have dropped at least as far as Blaise's, sitting on the far side of Daphne. "Perhaps you ought to check the register?"

"Thank you, Miss Greengrass, but Miss Black knows just who she is," that woman says. "She should be happy to answer to that name, rather than… the other."

"Why are you so curious about my wand, madam?" Bellona asks, giving in for Daphne's sake. "No other teacher has ever found fault with it, and I visited Monsieur Ollivander just last summer with a friend, and he thought it a perfectly acceptable example of his craft. I do not see what it matters where it was made."

"That is _not_ for you to decide, Miss Black," the woman says, her hands white and her mouth thin. "Now _give me your wand_."

"No," Bellona says, in her first ever show of rebellion against a teacher. She misses Remus painfully just then, because he would have stood at her shoulder against this odious woman. She does not trust Professor Snape to do the same, and does not think it wise to highlight Professor Hagrid to her, if he were here - no doubt Dolores Umbridge would be even more eager to be rid of him than she is Bellona.

Who else does she have? Professor McGonagall, who is wary of her for being a Slytherin and for being her father's daughter, no matter how exemplary her Transfiguration work is? Professor Dumbledore?

"You cannot refuse a direct order from a teacher, Miss Black," the woman says, giving up all pretence of sweetness in favour of venom. "Give me your wand _now."_

Bellona takes her wand from its place on her desk and tucks it into her hair. Then she puts her things into her bag, pushes back her chair, and stands.

"No," she says again, and leaves. Remus suggested she take her chances with Professor Dumbledore if Dolores Umbridge singled her out, and while she does not like to do it - particularly not so soon into the year! - she cannot see what other choice she has.

* * *

"Mademoiselle de Poitiers," Professor Dumbledore says, emerging from behind the great eagle leading to his office just as she raises her hand to knock. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I am here to beg protection, sir," she says, worried now that she has gone too far. "Madam Umbridge wanted to take my wand, sir, and I refused."

Professor Dumbledore's eyes are a very pale, very sharp blue. They make Bellona think of a bird of prey, and not in the comforting way of Maman and the others.

"Come this way, Bellona," he says, waving her into his office. "If you please."

She follows the spiralling stairs into his office. She's not sure if he is one of those who cannot bear to throw anything out, or if he simply likes to show off all the powerful artefacts he's collected. Some of them remind her of the things kept in the outer vault at Valence, special treasures given over to the Duchesses de Valentinois by wizarding families across France for fear of Muggle encroachment.

"Oh!" she cries, darting over to greet the _beautiful_ phoenix perched by the desk. "Oh, monsieur, how lovely to meet you!"

She curtsies, because a phoenix is a noble bird, and is rewarded with a coo like a dove's.

"His name is Fawkes," Professor Dumbledore says. "We have been friends for a long time."

Having a phoenix for a friend improves Bellona's opinion of Professor Dumbledore exponentially. Veela are close to fire-birds, and there is no finer a fire-bird than a phoenix - no more particular, either.

"Now, Bellona," he says, motioning for her to take a seat. "Remus has given me some insight into what has been happening with Professor Umbridge. Tell me what happened today, in your own words."

Bellona is telling him how afraid she felt, knowing Dolores Umbridge's ministry record, when the woman herself walks through the door. She seems even more outraged that Bellona beat her here than that she refused an order.

* * *

Papa's letter is proud, when she tells him of her detentions, but Remus' is wary. If Bellona were being a little less optimistic, she might even say that Remus sounds afraid.

Maman threatens to come to Hogwarts and slap sense into Dolores Umbridge, but that would only make things worse.

Dora writes that she will speak to Fol-Oeil Moody, and see if he cannot find something to use against that woman. Dora shares in Remus' worry over her, but Dora's worry is tempered with a fury that Bellona can feel stirring in her own belly.

She left her wand in Blaise's care before coming here, and hopes she will not regret it. Some part of her is sincerely afraid that that woman will turn on her, and she would rather not be defenceless. She would rather be hurt than lose her wand, though. Hurts will heal, but her wand, the way it combines all the best parts of her? That cannot be replaced.

"Come in, Miss Black," and Bellona does not flinch at that even a little bit. She's proud of herself for it. "You will be doing lines tonight. Take a seat."

* * *

Bellona decides not to tell Maman or Papa or Dora or Anatole about the blood quill. She does not tell any of them about this horrible new scar.

She tells Jeanne, though. And Remus. And Madam Sofia. And Isoseta Aleksi, but not Ukki.

Blaise bandages her hand with the dittany potion Daphne brews for bumps and scrapes, because the basic healing magic they know doesn't seem to be doing anything to the wounds.

 _Toujours Pur._ Something Bellona has no interest in being. Dolores Umbridge seems intent on punishing her for her dirty blood nonetheless.

 **VI.**

 _Speak to Harry,_ Remus writes. _Ask him his plans for the first Hogsmeade visit._

Bellona hasn't spoken to Harry since the train, too preoccupied with being afraid of Professor Umbridge, of the way her hand never quite seems to stop bleeding, of the way none of the other teachers seem to care. She's afraid of the favour and confidence her housemates find in that woman, more than she feared Draco and Pansy being made prefects. She's afraid that Blaise will get detention next - that he's only been spared this far because no one else seems to have met Sofia Nikolaevna, and so they don't know her secret, not even the fringe of it like Bellona does.

She's afraid, because Harry's hand is bandaged too, and she does not want to invite more horror into her already falling-apart world here at Hogwarts.

But because Remus asks it of her, and because she trusts Remus, she goes to Harry in the library the day after Blanchfleur's latest arrival - already sent off again, to Taivolkovski this time because Aleksi has cracked and revealed her secret to Ukki. His hand is seeping very slightly through his bandages as well, and that makes her feel brave. They must stop this terrible woman, and Remus seems to think Harry has a way to do it.

"Remus says I ought to ask you about Hogsmeade," she says, by way of hello. "Why would he say that?"

Harry blinks up at her, smiles just a little, and scrawls something on a scrap of parchment. By some miracle, it's legible - his writing often isn't - but that leaves her no less confused.

"Keep it quiet," he says. "I'll explain all later."

* * *

Bellona cannot help but hold up the hem of her dress when she steps into the Hog's Head, even though her dress only comes to her knees. It's instinct to protect against a floor that dirty.

The whole pub goes quiet at the sight of her and Blaise, and there, of course, in the centre of things, is Ginny Weasley and her brothers.

"Marvellous," Bellona says, planting herself at the table with Ron and Hermione and Harry out of sheer annoyance. "Do you plan on treating me like a villain now as well? There isn't much point in my being here if you're going to refuse to speak, Weasleys."

"Belle," Harry chides. "Please."

"Why should she make nice if they won't?" Blaise asks, returning with what smells very much like ginger wassail in two tall tankards. "Just because we aren't sainted Gryffindors, doesn't mean we're always _wrong,_ Potter."

A murmur goes through the clutch of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws sitting nearby, and Bellona wishes she hadn't come. She promised Remus, though, so she's going to sit through whatever discomfort the Weasleys want to visit on her, and-

Hermione squeezes her hand, startling her. Her smile is a little uncertain, but it's there and it's genuine, and it's a start. Oh. She hadn't expected that at all.

"I've a salve that might help your hand," she says, nodding to Bellona's already staining bandages. "I'll bring it to dinner tonight for you, if that's alright?"

* * *

Bellona might be relying on whatever paltry protection Professor Dumbledore is giving her, but she still doesn't like or trust him very much. She says as much to Blaise, who shrugs, because everyone else _adores_ him. It sticks in her throat to belong to something called _Dumbledore's Army,_ but it isn't as though they'll be attending every meeting to which Hermione summons them. She can endure if for Papa and Remus' peace of mind.

"We do what we must," Blaise says. "Come on, before Honeydukes runs out of the aniseed biscuits."

Daphne still looks a little hurt that they left her out of their adventure today, but what are they to do? They cannot ask her to choose between them and her family - neither of them is that cruel.

 **VII.**

Christmas comes, and Bellona finds herself uninvited from Grimmauld Place.

Papa is furious - Remus and Dromeda both write that he's been bullied into place by Dumbledore, who Remus is sure has the best of intentions. Dromeda is a little less sanguine about it. She thinks it's absurd that Bellona should be kept away from her own home, and it takes Bellona and Dora together to convince her that she doesn't really mind.

Blaise and Sofia Nikolaevna are invited to Valence instead, to make up the lack, and Bellona is sure that that will make it better. It _will._

* * *

Papa writes her reams and reams of letters, and sends as many presents as he can find owls to carry - Harry's Hedwig among them, laden with a long black cloak lined with deep purple satin. He's furious that their first chance at Christmas together has been stolen, and he cannot seem to decide who he's angriest with.

Sense says it ought to be Lord Voldemort, whose snake attacked Mr Weasley. Bellona is much, much angrier with Dumbledore, though, because he is the one who has banned her from her father's house so that he can give its use over to Molly Weasley and her brood.

* * *

Jeanne comes out onto the roof with three cups of mulled wine the night after Christmas, and Blaise follows after with blankets and a little fire in a bell jar.

"I hate them," Bellona says. "Why do they have so much more claim to him than I do? What have I done to earn exile?"

Perhaps Blaise should not have been told the full details of why this is Bellona's Christmas. She doesn't care. He's given up Christmas in Helsinki with his stepsisters for this, and she is so grateful to him she could cry if she weren't so angry.

"The great Dumbledore proves himself a disappointment once more," Jeanne says, and Blaise raises his cup in salute. "Oh, Belle, there must be something we can do! Some way to get you to your papa?"

"Not unless we fly to London and somehow spirit him out of his prison-"

"We are not breaking your father out of his house, Belle," Blaise says gently, "but getting you to London… That we can do. Easily. Mama and Madam Juno will surely help."

* * *

Jeanne doesn't like London, which makes Blaise laugh and Bellona roll her eyes, and they march across Grimmauld Place with Maman and Madam Sofia behind them. Bellona and Maman are the only ones who can see the house, because they know that it is there, and Jeanne gives a delicate little huff of distaste when it is revealed to her.

"Most wizards are a little cleaner," Blaise whispers, lightening the mood just enough for Bellona to recover her bravery so she can knock on the door.

Papa answers before she's knocked three times, and heaves her into his arms without a word. She thinks he might be crying, but she isn't going to draw attention to that - especially not since she thinks she might be crying too.

* * *

"We'll stay out of your way, Molly," Papa says, icy cold, when Mrs Weasley confronts him about Bellona and the others visiting. "Don't worry, you still have complete control of my house."

He herds them into the sitting room with the family tree on the wall, where nobody really likes to sit, and disappears down to the kitchen for food and drinks. Kreacher hovers, spitting near Maman's feet, near Jeanne's and Sofia Nikolaevna's and Bellona's, but for some reason not near Blaise's. Papa kicks him away when he comes back, trays and baskets floating before him, and for once Bellona feels no sympathy for the little creature.

"Arthur is in a bad way," Papa says, "but there's no reason for- I'm so glad you're here, Belle. I'm so glad."

Bellona tucks herself under his arm, Maman on her other side, Blaise and Jeanne and Madam Sofia arranged around the other side of the fire. All that is missing is Remus and Dora, and Daphne, and perhaps Dromeda and her husband of whom she tells stories filled with a gentle, sunny warmth that Bellona does not know but would like to encounter.

"How old were you, Sirius?" Maman asks quietly. "When you left this place?"

"Sixteen. James' parents - Harry's grandparents, that is - they took me in. Left it so I didn't ever have to think of this place as home again. I didn't think I'd ever come back, except to pull it down."

"We could remake it," Bellona says. "Mrs Weasley spent all summer trying to clean it, but we could… We could change the whole house. Make it a better place."

Papa's arm tightens around her shoulders. He looks thoughtful but already defeated. Bellona decides that when all this is done - when he is free, and the war is won, she will have Maman take him away for a while, and she can bring Blaise and Daphne here and they can make it so that he won't even recognise it.

"Belle, chouette," Maman says. "The wall, ma chere!"

The wall under Bellona's palm, where once there was some near-forgotten Black ancestor, is singed away to nothing.

"Well," Papa says, "maybe we'll test Veela fire against my mother's portrait next, what do you think, poppet?"

* * *

Papa asks to see her hand, and then he locks himself in his room for two hours. She hears things breaking, and does not ask, but she thinks that maybe he is the angriest she has ever known him.

He tries to heal it, even though he is terrible at healing magic. Maman kisses him on the mouth as a reward, which makes him blush.

* * *

There is an army of the Order arrayed to get Harry and Hermione and the Weasleys safe to King's Cross. Bellona feels quite safe knowing that she will have Maman and Madam Sofia - and Jeanne, who when her temper is up has her father's razor-edged teeth - and tries very hard not to mind when Papa is assigned to Harry's care, rather than hers.

But then there comes a knock on the door of Grimmauld Place, and a woman who looks as much like Bellona as Maman does is standing on the step when she answers.

"So you're Bellona," Andromeda Tonks says, with a smile just like her daughter's. "You're much prettier than your father, sweetheart."

"Thank you, Dromeda!" Papa calls. "Make yourself at home, we aren't leaving yet!"

Bellona brings Dromeda into the family tree room, which she and Jeanne have been steadily burning their way through for the past two days. Bellona didn't know she could produce even a little heat in her hands, because that's something only true Veela are supposed to do. While she can't manage much more than to slowly smoulder the cursed wallpaper away, she's been glad to have such an ugly canvas on which to practice her art.

Blaise thinks it's terrifying, and tells her so with a smile on his face.

 **VIII.**

Sybil Trelawney _is_ a Seer. Bellona is sure of that - Albus Dumbledore, who Dromeda terms _a collector,_ would not have scooped her up if she was a charlatan.

That does not prevent Dolores Umbridge's tyranny from catching her unawares, though.

Bellona and Blaise hold back a wave of jeering Slytherins who would rejoice in the poor woman's grief and terror, simply for its existence. What will they say when Professor Hagrid is taken away? Professor Sprout, who has something of a dryad in her spectacular hands? Professor Sinistra, with stars in her hair? That little girl in Ravenclaw who sings so sweetly and sorrowfully that no one can look away?

Bellona?

* * *

The school is hollow now, exams and teetering-on-the-brink classrooms and decrees echoing down halls over which Malfoy reigns like a malignant tumour. Bellona is spared his malice only by dint of being in Slytherin, and she has quite enough to concern herself with, now that her hand is cut so deep she's starting to get pins and needles in her fingers.

* * *

Marietta Edgecombe is marked by Hermione Granger's fury, and Bellona cannot help but sympathise.

If Dolores Umbridge was threatening _her_ family, she might give Harry over as well.

* * *

Blaise and Bellona seem to escape suspicion, more or less, for their role in Dumbledore's Army - perhaps because their companions have always suspected them as spies, perhaps because their house protects them. She doesn't know, but she is weak enough to be relieved that she has no more detentions for a week or two.

* * *

Choosing subjects means choosing a career means a private meeting with Professor Snape.

One attended by Professor Umbridge.

"Alright, de Poitiers-"

" _Hem hem."_

Professor Snape looms like no other man Bellona has ever met, and he does so now. He rises ponderously from his seat and rounds on her like the night, with his great black robes swirling just enough.

"De Poitiers is my very last fifth-year student, Professor," he says, which is true. Every other time he's scheduled this appointment, Professor Umbridge has engaged Bellona in an evening of carving her father's family motto into the back of her hand. "I have suffered your interruptions through every single one of these _interviews_. You have generally allowed me to go further than their names, so if this is a sign of how you intend to conduct yourself during de Poitiers' time in my office… I would ask that you leave."

"I'll behave, Severus," Dolores Umbridge says, far more flirtatiously than Bellona can stomach. She swallows back bile as Professor Snape retakes his seat, and passes her half a dozen leaflets, so incongruously colourful in the gloom of his office.

"I assume you're looking to become a curse-breaker for Gringotts?" he says, surprising her with his insight. She's talked about it a little with Maman and Papa, and that _is_ what she's been leaning toward - her skill with languages, her natural talent at Transfiguration, her knack for Charms, it seems the best fit. She's just taken aback that Professor Snape knows this, and wonders if he overheard her speaking with Papa or Remus at Grimmauld Place over Christmas. "Might I also suggest writing to the Ministry to inquire about their curse-breaking needs, and…"

Professor Umbridge coughs many times over the course of Bellona's interview. Professor Snape ignores it every time.

 **IX.**

 _Dearest Bellona,_

 _My stinky cousin tells me he hasn't had proper word you in weeks - are you well? Your letters have been very short since Christmas, and I'm worried for you. Dora hasn't had word from you since Easter, and I know the two of you were playing chess over your letters. It's very rude to leave in the middle of a game, sweetheart. You should write more often._

* * *

Harry begins to scream during their History of Magic exam. Bellona has only one question left, and so she is with him even before Hermione Granger.

* * *

 _Belle-_

 _I've asked a few friends who I thought might be able to help, and they all say the same - Umbridge's authority is coming straight from the Minister. The only way around it is by appeal, but since she still sits on the Wizengamot…_

 _Tread carefully. Your father will never forgive me if I let you die._

* * *

"I have to go to the Ministry," Harry says, wild with panic. Bellona is so afraid that she cannot even speak, but she knows that she may well be more useful here than there - there, Papa will put himself in harm's way for her sake, even if Harry's vision is true. Here, she might stall the Umbridge bitch and her demonic little band long enough to get Harry and his friends to London. She wants to go to London, but her being a Slytherin might give her just enough leeway to halt any pursuit a precious few moments longer.

"Then we'll find a way," Bellona says. "But first, we must check if Papa is at home. He would not thank us for putting ourselves needlessly in danger. He's never far from a fire - he thinks the house terribly cold."

"The only fire that's still connected to the Floo is in Umbridge's office," Ron says. "We'll need a bloody great distraction to get in there."

Bellona cannot ask Blaise to involve himself in this, not when she knows how lethal the punishment they draw might be - she knows how much Filch is looking forward to making the most of Professor Umbridge's decrees. But she cannot excuse herself from this, even if Papa is _not_ in the Ministry. The time for standing by has passed, passed long ago, passed when Professor Umbridge started using those evil quills on even the first years.

Bellona just hasn't been brave enough to step forward until now.

* * *

 _Little one,_

 _Please, won't you consider coming home? Even if not to us, then to your grandfather. We are all so afraid for you. Please, my darling, please come home. You will be safe here. You are not safe there. You will be safe here, where we have been safe through every war and every difficulty._

 _Your mother is afraid for you, Bellona. We all are._

* * *

She leaves Harry and the rest to their business and marches right to the storeroom nearest Professor Umbridge's classroom. There are protective charms on the door, but since Bellona is not afraid of being caught - is interested in it, even - she doesn't bother with finesse.

Her first curse shimmers against the outermost shield. The next shatters.

A crowd is beginning to gather, pouring out of the classrooms nearest her, but she ignores it. She focuses on cursing the door, and on the heat gathering in her left hand. Jeanne explained what it ought to feel like. She thinks she's nearly there.

Three layers of shielding charms crack under Bellona's anger, and the scars on the back of her left hand seem to burn just as bright as the fire gathering in her palm.

The final charms break open. The door is not even locked underneath them. Bellona does not look at her left hand, does not look at _anything_ except the shelves of those heinous, evil things behind the door.

They catch alight easier than she expected.

* * *

 _Belle,_

 _Your Blaise writes to me that you are being tortured by one of your teachers - does Tante Juno know this? Does your papa? If they do not act soon, I will round up the twins and we will rescue you from that English shithole._

* * *

Flint is the one to catch her, taking her down with a tackle around the waist. Too late, Marcus, too slow! The bitch's quills are gone and the others, if they've done their job, will know soon enough whether or not Papa is safe!

"Always wondered if you were as pretty up close as you seem," Flint leers, pinning her to the floor by her wrists, and she lifts her knee as hard into his groin as she can just for the joy of it. She wonders if this is the Black madness of which Dromeda warned her, or the malice Remus warningly remembered in Papa. She doesn't know, and she doesn't much care. All that matters is that she wins - and she will.

Marcus Flint rolls off her, whining like a dog, and she's on her feet before whichever fool crony of his is nearest can make a grab for her. She hasn't lost her wand, either, so she throws up a Shield Charm against whatever hexes they hurl her way, and runs as fast as she can for the kitchens - Papa told her the way in, and she bets none of the others even know where they are.

Before she gets there, Professor Snape catches her by the neck of her robes and throws her into a classroom.

"You will remain here," he says, "until I come back for you."

"No! No, Professor, he has my father! Harry is going-"

"You will remain here," Snape says dispassionately. "It is for your own good, de Poitiers."

Whatever it is he does to the door on his way out, she cannot break the spell. Even her fire won't burn through it.

 **X.**

 _Belley-_

 _If Snivellus doesn't step in to help against that woman, ask Minerva. She's stern and she's fierce, but she'll stand for you. You can trust her._

 _We'll settle all this nonsense about the Quidditch Cup over the summer. You can outfly every one of them, and we'll have Blaise and Jeanne on your team, against Harry and Ron and Ginny. I know Jeanne said she's never been on a broom before, but she's a Veela - your mother had never flown without wings the first time I brought her out and she was fine._

 _I've been thinking about what you said, Belley. About changing the house. I think it could be a good idea. We'll need to burn my mother out of it first, but after that, you can decide whatever you want. I don't doubt you've better taste than me, and it will be your house for longer than it's been mine._

 _I miss you, Belley. Write back to me, sweetheart._

 _\- Padfoot._

* * *

Professor Snape looks worse than usual when he finally arrives to let her out, early the next morning. She has not slept, so doubtless she looks no better, but there is something about him that makes her itch.

There have been feathers in her hair all night. Pinfeathers in her temples and primaries in her plaits, and her hands have been aching with fire under her skin since midnight came alone.

"There was a fight in the Ministry last night," he says. "Your little friends all survived. Your father was… Not so lucky."

He is gone before his words have fully registered, and Bellona thinks - this is a lie. He hates her because she is her father's daughter, and this is a lie engineered to hurt her.

She decides - it is morning. She will go to breakfast. Blaise will be there, and Daphne.

The great hall is full when she gets there, and Blaise and Daphne come running from the far end of the Slytherin table when she steps through the door. After breakfast, she will reply to Papa's latest letter, and they can start to make plans for the house.

"Where've _you_ been, half-breed?" Pansy asks, popping up like the weed she is. "When all your dirty blood-traitor friends were trying to kill the headmistress last night, where did _you_ end up? Marcus says he had you, but-"

"Belle," Blaise says, his arm sliding around her shoulder on reflex. "Belle, we've been so worried-"

Pansy has Belle's wand. Why does Pansy have Belle's wand?

"Marcus says you set fire to the headmistress' quill store with a fireball you made in your hand," Pansy says. "A thing like _you_ doesn't need a wand."

 _Snap._

Grand-mère and Ukki's hairs shine like starlight between the dark hawthorn of the two halves of Belle's wand.

Pansy's blood is dark red on Belle's hand. Her nose makes a low, satisfying crunch under Belle's knuckles, and she's screaming shrill as a siren when Blaise catches Belle under the arms and _heaves_ her away. Daphne gathers her legs to stop her kicking at Pansy, at Draco, at Vincent and Gregory and anyone else within her reach.

"Belle!" Daphne shouts as they drop her on the floor of the entrance hall, and drop with her to stop her from running back in to _kill Pansy Parkinson._ "Belle, stop! Tell us what's wrong!"

But she cannot speak, not when her wand is broken and Papa is dead and she is crying so hard.


	6. Sixth Year - First Term

**a)**

"Wait. Did anyone tell Belle?"

 **I.**

Jeanne comes tearing up the long gravel path from the kitchen garden with black ribbons in her silver hair, and Belle folds down into her cousin's embrace.

"I'm sorry, Belle, I'm so sorry," Jeanne says, rocking her gently as Maman and Grand-mere and- and Tante Leto, and Tante Metis, and the twins? Belle cannot remember the last time Apollonia or Artemisia touched her, but here they are, offering her comfort. Perhaps Jeanne was more right than Belle realised, when she tried to broker a reconciliation between them all. Perhaps it is simply that they, who have never really known their father, understand this sudden, consuming absence.

Death is a familiar thing here in Valence, where there are monuments dotted throughout the orchards for all the family and friends who have fallen in all the wars, wizard and Muggle alike. Maman has already promised that they can erect a memorial for Papa.

She will have no body to bury, no grave to stand over. Only Dora and Dromeda have written to her - Dromeda has asked her to visit over the summer, even - but that has been enough. Dora did not see it, but she was in the Ministry, and someone else told her about it.

No one else has thought to tell Bellona. There were plenty of people there, but not one of them has thought to alert Sirius Black's next-of-kin of his death. She wonders if they've all assumed that Harry will get Papa's house, and if Professor Dumbledore will whisper in the right ears to make it so. It would be so inconvenient for them if she took away their London base.

* * *

Remus' letter comes the day after she gets home, and is crumpled as though he agonised over it. It contains thirteen apologies - unlucky, some would say - and is delivered by hand, by Remus himself. Anatole and Amand sought him out and brought him with them, and he looks sorrier even than his patched and faded robes.

"Oh, Belle," he sighs, pulling her into his arms and pressing his face to her hair. She holds on as tight as she can, glad of the trembling strength of his thin, worn body, glad to have someone else here who loved her papa. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"You did not kill Sirius, Remus," Maman says, stroking her hand over Belle's hair. She hasn't been bothered to pin it or plait it since Papa's death, and it's only clean and neat because Jeanne helped her wash it and insisted on brushing it every morning. Maman had tried, but Belle could hardly bear Maman to touch her since Papa's death. It isn't fair to Maman, and some part of her knows it to be foolish, but having Maman, who has been with her always, when Papa has been ripped away from her after such a small little time… It is more than she can stand. "You are not to blame."

Bellatrix Lestrange is, according to Dora. This bitch with whom Belle shares a face, that is who killed her papa. She haunts Belle, dogs her every step, and Belle would like to meet this great and terrible Bella, of whom Dromeda speaks with such absolute contempt. She would like a chance to claim blood for blood, the madwoman's life for Papa's.

The Order of the Phoenix have claimed Papa's death as their tragedy, though, so much so that only Belle's cousin and her godfather remembered to tell her that her father had been murdered. She has nothing of Papa's, no souvenir to keep the memory of him close, and it hurts. It hurts more than she can explain to have him stolen from her twice over.

She will have her vengeance claimed, too. The only person to whom she would cede Bellatrix Lestrange is Neville Longbottom, but Neville is not a killer, and so Bellatrix _should_ be Belle's. The Order will find some way to deny her, though. She has no doubt about that.

"Whatever you need, Belle," Remus says. "I'm here for whatever you need."

She believes that he means it. She also believes that he will bend to whatever Albus Dumbledore asks of him, even if it comes between them.

* * *

Dora comes as well. Her hair is the same soft ashy-brown as her father's, in the photos she showed Belle, but her eyes are striking Black dark brown. It's shocking to see her without her wild hair and her bold makeup, but Belle finds that she likes Dora's face now that she can see something of herself in it, in the shape of those eyes and the way she tips up her chin.

"Come here, you," Dora says. "Mum would've come as well, but Dad did his back again and he can't put his right leg under him. You're stuck with just me, I'm afraid!"

Dora very pointedly does not look at Remus, and she hugs Belle so hard her back clicks. There's something amiss there - something Remus has done, because Belle cannot imagine Dora letting her hair fade like this unless she was upset - but Belle cannot find it in herself to ask. It isn't that she does not care, she cares very much, but she hasn't even been able to reply to the letter Blaise sent two weeks ago. It's the longest she's gone without talking to Blaise since they were eleven years old, and while she knows that she should be missing him, she simply feels… Blank.

"We'll sit and be miserable together," Dora says bracingly. "Where's your uncle? He promised me some kind of very delicious pastry if I came to visit - maybe we'll feel better if we get fat."

* * *

She hasn't cried since her screaming fit, that pale and terrible morning, and thinks she probably ought to. Even when they put up Papa's memorial, she remains dry-eyed. The memorial is tucked against a tall Judas tree, bare of its pink springtime blossoms in the high July heat. Belle likes the round-cornered stone in cool black marble with gold lettering, simple and elegant. Nothing about her papa was simple, and he was elegant mostly by accident, but it is all that she has and she is grateful for that.

Dora is gone home, Remus has been and gone twice, and there is no one else. The de Poitiers of Valentinois are alone. Much and all as Belle might wish otherwise, she is alone. There is her family, there is Dora and Dromeda, there is Blaise and Daphne, and there is Remus when he is not needed elsewhere.

That will do. Nothing can fill the space her papa has left, and she is happy that no one is trying.

 **II.**

Blaise and Madame Sofia meet them in Paris for their school shopping. Maman arranged it all with Madame Sofia, wrote to her because Belle wasn't writing to Blaise, and now that she is here, looking at all the love and concern on Blaise's handsome face, it nearly overwhelms her.

Still she cannot cry.

Madame Sofia and Maman talk in hushed whispers, but Blaise simply takes Belle by the hand and pulls her away to sit under the striped awning of an ice-cream parlour not dissimilar to Monsieur Fortescue's. The sundaes are not quite so big, but the ice-cream itself is a little richer and heavier, and she is grateful that Blaise seems content to sit in the blistering heat without speaking.

"I can't talk about it," she says, once she's eaten all of the nuts and all of the strawberry ice-cream. "I don't have words for it. Not in any of my languages."

She speaks French and Finnish and English, Breton and Spanish and Latin, Russian now and some Greek as well, but even with all of that she cannot find a way to describe the rupturing pain in her gut every time she thinks of her father. Blaise presses his hand over hers, flat on the table, and nods.

He has lost his papa as well, after all. He speaks near as many languages as she does, and maybe he understands this just as he understands so many other things.

"I've missed you," she says, her throat heavy as if she might cry, even though her eyes are dry. "I'm sorry I've been- absent."

He shrugs, because she has been absent, but he doesn't seem to mind. They say no more as they finish their sundaes, hands still pressed together, and then they sit a little while longer.

"Your wand?" he asks, and she holds up the narrow ebony case Grand-mère gave her for the two halves Pansy left behind. The hinges and clasp on the case are silver, bright as the moon, and inside, the twined hairs revealed by the break in her wand catch every ray of light in just the right way to split her heart to match. Blaise's scowl could kill, if Pansy were nearby, and that makes Belle smile as she tucks the box away.

They stand, and walk in silence to Madame Dubois' shop. She's the finest wandmaker in Paris - the best in France, no matter what the Desormeaux in Rennes think - and her shop is a beautiful thing in its own right. Belle has heard that Monsieur Ollivander has all his wands already made, waiting for their owners in boxes on his dusty shelves, but Madame Dubois does things differently.

Madame Dubois makes every wand to fit. She made Belle's wand, and she made wands for both Delacours, and she made Amand's half-human niece's wand. She has a soft spot for people like her, with her half-dryad's voice singing wands from wood.

"Ah, Mademoiselle de Poitiers!" she calls as soon as Belle and Blaise push open the door. "A moment, cherie, just a moment."

The little girl standing at the counter smiles over her shoulder even as her mother draws her just a little closer - the name de Poitiers carries weight in the Vingt-et-unième, and that is not always a good thing. There's not a wealthy French wizarding family who has not entrusted some of their wealth to the Valentinois vault, but much as the English wizards hate the goblins of Gringotts, so too do the French elite hate the Veela who hold their gold. Ah, well. Belle's well used to being disliked.

The little girl waves as she passes, blushing when Blaise smiles down at her, and her mama - an Aubigné, by the enamel brooch holding her sheer yellow silk scarf in place over her shoulders - manages a smile, a dip of her Sleekeazyed head. Belle returns it in kind, very aware of the de Poitiers brooch on the strap of her bag, very aware of the sharp black-and-white stripes of her flaring chiffon sunray-pleat skirt. Blaise laughs quietly as the door whispers shut behind them, and nudges Belle toward the counter while he turns to examine the wandwood specimens growing in beautiful glazed planters around the shop.

"Now, ma petite," Madame Dubois says her hands folded in a way that shows off her beautiful wooden rings to best advantage. "Tell me what brings you here - surely you have not worn out your wand? Your core alone would preserve the wood for years yet."

"I was not given the opportunity to wear it out," she says, taking her ebony box from her bag and setting it on the counter. "There was- there is a girl who does not like me very much at school. She took advantage of- unfortunate circumstances and used them to-"

Her throat feels thick again, and Madame Dubois' face softens. Her eyes are a fascinating shade of hazel-green, like sunlight dappling through summer leaves, and they are warm now with sympathy.

"Your unfortunate circumstances are known to me, cherie," she says. "We are a small community, Mademoiselle Bellona, and we look after our own."

Half-humans are rare, but there are more of them here in France than Belle realised until recently - Jeanne and Anatole have been helping her reach out, and while she cannot regret Hogwarts, for it has brought her Blaise and Daphne, she cannot help but wonder how much easier things might have been had she gone to Beauxbatons instead. She would have had Fleur and Gabrielle, if no one else, and their aunt, Madame Appoline's sister, teaches Charms there. Things could have been… Ah, well. Such is life.

Madame Dubois makes all the appropriate noises when Belle reveals the wreckage of her wand, but almost immediately begins to hum thoughtfully.

"You know," she says, "I think it may be time for a change. Your core, of course, that will remain - I cannot imagine a core that could suit you as well."

"Phoenix feather," Blaise says mildly, from away across the room. "A fire-bird core might suit her."

He turns to face their surprised silence, and smiles bashfully.

"I've studied a little wandlore," he admits. "We all need hobbies."

"Quite so, monsieur," Madame Dubois agrees cheerfully. "Come this way with me, Mademoiselle Bellona, come with me - let me see what sings for you."

The neat little trees hum in harmony as they walk the room, Madame Dubois stroking the reaching tendrils as they pass. Blaise moves to lean against the counter, to give them room but also to watch everything - Belle can see how he's focused on Madame Dubois' elegant hands.

"I think we have a winner," she said, running her fingertips across the pale green leaves and snowy white clusters of flowers of a silvery-barked tree. "Whitebeam - yes, this will do nicely."

Blaise leaned forward a little to watch more closely as Madame Dubois hums to coax the wood of the two split halves of her old wand away from the core - Grand-mère and Ukki's hairs shine bright, bright, brighter as the wood gently parts, and Belle is so focused on that that she hardly even notices the new wand forming from an outstretched finger of whitebeam, shedding its bark and drying to a hard white-gold shine under Madame Dubois' tender magic.

"Now," she sighs, lifting the hair from Belle's ebony box, and laying it against the new wand, where the wood wraps around it without leaving a seam, "now, we'll seal it all, and see if it sings for you, Mademoiselle Bellona."

Blaise steps away from the counter now, as if afraid of intruding on Madame Dubois' work - perhaps the wandmaker in St. Petersburg who crafted his wand was more secretive, but Madame Dubois' methods were never hidden. The wood called to her, and she called back.

The varnish she used was silver-clear, leaving the new, pale wood of the wand in her hands almost the same colour as Grand-mère's hair. It was the opposite of the dark hawthorn of Bellona's old wand, and was all different otherwise - longer, slimmer, and under Madame Dubois' careful, lyrical handling, curling all about the handle with winding patterns that called to mind La Tène more than anything else.

"Oh," Belle says, as the swirling patterns hint at something that looks very like a Grim - like Padfoot. "Oh, Madame Dubois, how did you know?"

"I didn't," Madame Dubois says, her smile soft and beatific. "But the wood knows, Mademoiselle Bellona. It always knows. Your core carries part of you in it, and it tells the wood everything it needs to know."

Only a dryad's daughter could say such things and not sound foolish. Grand-mère knows Madame Dubois' papa, who was a keeper of the Forêt d'Aïtone on Corsica before he retired to le Parc Commémoratif here in le Vingt-et-unième, just down the street from Madame Dubois' shop, and has always said that he is a most philosophical of beings. Madame Dubois has some of that same air, but the practicality of her beautiful hands grounds her a little.

"Now, Mademoiselle Bellona," Madame Dubois says. "Whitebeam, fourteen-and-a-half inches, firm but not unyielding, Veela hair core. This feels more a combat wand than the last, cherie - should it?"

"It may prove more necessary than we would like," Blaise says, resting his hand on Belle's shoulder. "Could you craft a combat harness, Madame? Black leather, with silver fittings?"

"I would not send her away without one," Madame Dubois assures him, passing the wand handle-first to Bellona's waiting hands. "Let me fetch my measuring tape."

* * *

Two hours and a visit to Mlle. Lelong for their new robes later, Blaise and Belle reunite with their mothers. Maman looks exhausted, her temples tight, and Madame Sofia looks tired too. She wonders at that, at the red-rim brightness of Maman's eyes, and feels guilt enough to overwhelm her at the realisation that Maman is mourning Papa as well. How selfish she has been!

"Hello, chouette," Maman says, kissing Belle's brow when she leans over to set down the bags of books and supplies by Belle's chair. "Madame Dubois served you well?"

"Beautifully, Maman," Belle promises. "And Mademoiselle Lelong as well - she told me that there is a grand-niece of Monsieur Balmain's coming back to the House next year, when she finishes at Beauxbatons."

"I wonder will she have Monsieur Balmain's taste, or something more conservative?" Madame Sofia says, caressing Blaise's cheek before taking her seat. "I should like to see what she produces - we will give her until next Christmas, see what kind of collections she creates."

"I will remain loyal to Mademoiselle Lelong for now," Blaise says with a grin. "She managed to make something interesting of our school uniforms, and for that alone she deserves a reward."

Belle isn't sure how the silk scarves she ordered in place of her ties will sit with the dress code, but she doesn't much care - she will skim close to the rules, with trousers and scarves and her wand strapped to her thigh, and she will be the French alien they all already think her. Blaise as well has cut himself a little tighter to the dress code, tailoring his robes a great deal more than is probably allowed and adding the most fantastic emerald green and silver striped lining. Daphne is going to look so very conservative between them, but she's so beautiful that no one will even notice.

"Things will be different for you both this year," Maman says. "After last year-"

 _Toujours Pur_ shines bright white on the back of Belle's hand, brighter when she clenches her fist.

"Well," Maman says. "Between that, and then- everything at the end of the year, we need you both to be careful."

"We're always careful, Maman-"

"No," Madame Sofia says. "You're both far too bold by nature to claim that. We need you to swear to us that you will be _careful,_ darlings. Please. Neither one of us could bear it if anything happened to either one of you."

"Mama," Blaise says, reaching over to take Madame Sofia's hand. "Mama, you know that we look after one another."

"I trust it," Madame Sofia says warningly. "But consider this our permission, darlings."

"Permission," Maman says, "to strike first."

 **III.**

Dora and Remus cannot make it to King's Cross to see her to the train, but Amand and Anatole come. They stand with Maman and Madame Sofia, and Blaise and Belle stand with them. Belle's long black boots make her feel very tall, which is good - there are enough people staring that she needs all the help she can get.

"If any harm comes to her," Anatole says, his beauty unearthly for the threat on his face, "I will see you repay it, Monsieur Zabini."

Sofia Nikolaevna smiles.

"And the same goes for you, Bellona," she says, lethal as only she can be, her face serene above the fantastic pattern of her gold-and-bronze blouse. "Take care of him, myshka, or there will be a price."

Amand simply holds tight to Belle's hand, his lovely face creased with concern, and she kisses his temple to sooth him. She's taller than him now, enough that it's noticeable, and she's glad that it hasn't at all changed the way he leans close to her, as if to lean over her. He's always been fiercely protective of her, for Anatole's sake initially and then for her own.

"I'll be fine, little uncle," she promises him. "This year will be different - Remus told me that the new teacher isn't nearly as dangerous as the one who left last year."

"Although that doesn't say much," Blaise chips in, very helpfully. "Come on, Belle, Daphne will be waiting for us."

Another round of kisses, and Anatole slipping something heavy - food of some sort, no doubt - into her outermost pocket.

"We'll be safe!" she promises again as they run for the train. "We will!"

* * *

Daphne is waiting on the train, curled into a corner of a compartment with some of the seventh years.

"Not sitting with our beloved roommates, Daph?" Blaise asks mildly, swooping down to kiss her cheeks, and sitting so Belle can do the same. "How daring."

"I didn't think Belle would want to sit with sweet Pansy," Daphne says, holding on tight to Belle before letting her sit. "I didn't want to sit with her, never mind anything else, and I thought it best you not try out your new wand in combat before the first meeting of the Duelling Club."

"There hasn't been a Duelling Club since Potter set a snake on Finch-Fletchley, Daph," Blaise says, taking a parcel of chocolate-covered zefir from his bag. "Unless you plan on setting one up?"

"I do," Daphne says, surprising them. "I've friends from other houses, through Charms Club, and they'd be interested - something like whatever secrets you were running with Potter and his friends last year, but legitimate."

"Daphne-"

"I know why you didn't let me in," Daphne assures Belle, leaning her head on Belle's shoulder so her bright, fair hair tumbles around them both. "But I'd like for us all to fight this together, if we can, and that means being open about it. So, a Duelling Club - Professor McGonagall will certainly support it, or so Alicia Spinnet says, and Susan Bones will speak to Professor Sprout for us. I just need to convince Professor Snape, which I will because I've never caused any excitement, good or bad, and find a Ravenclaw willing to speak to Professor Flitwick."

"Anthony Goldstein might be a good shout there," Belle suggests. "He's an alright sort. Didn't you do your Charms practical with him, Daph?"

Belle hasn't thought much about the exams - her results came, she handed them to Maman, and the school never said she couldn't do the classes she chose, so they must have gone well enough. All she really worried about was getting an O in Transfiguration, and Maman would've told her if she hadn't. Blaise got all O's and E's, she knows, and Daphne likely got the same, but Belle just couldn't summon the will to care.

Maybe she'll write to Maman, ask for her results.

"I'll speak to him," Daphne says. "If not him, Loony Lovegood's quite sweet, I think. We should have the club set up by Halloween, if we're lucky. I wouldn't put it past Dumbledore to object, since it isn't coming from a Gryffindor, but we might catch him unawares."

Belle slips her arm around Daphne's shoulders, glad that the seventh years are ignoring them. It feels almost like school used to, sitting together in the quiet.

* * *

" _Belle!"_ Daphne gasps, once they've changed into their robes. "Those are-"

"Lelong," Belle says with a grin. "I know - Blaise's are as well, whenever he gets here. I brought an outer robe for you, and Mademoiselle Lelong gave me the charm to make sure it fits, but I didn't know what else you'd like."

"Will you be allowed to wear this?" Daphne asks, which is a good question. Girls can wear trousers, even though most of them don't, but this might be pushing it a little. Belle's trousers are black, and tightly fitted, and they disappear under her long black boots. Between that and the cinch of her robes about her waist, and the neck-scarf replacing her tie, her school uniform looks like nothing less than Auror's robes. "I love it, but I'm not sure the teachers will."

"They can like or dislike it as much as they like," Belle says with a shrug. "I'm not breaking any rules - well, except the tie, I suppose - so there's nothing really that they can do."

"They aren't going to like anything not made by Malkin," Blaise says, closing the door behind him. "But we aren't going to let that stop us - it's bad enough we have to wear the same thing every day without it being ugly, too."

Daphne's smile is wry.

"Blaise, dear," she says. "That's the whole _point_ of school uniforms."

* * *

"My mother told me about Slughorn," Daphne murmurs at dinner. "He's not a bad sort, if you flatter him. We should be fine this year."

"Easy for you to say," Blaise says. " _You_ won't have to suffer Snape's attempts at Defence Against the Dark Arts, knowing that he- well, you _know."_

Rumour of Professor Snape's Dark Mark trickled down through Slytherin, right into the ears of Daphne's little sister. Astoria's open disdain for Daphne's friends has served her well, and she's right at the heart of the house. She hears everything, and is still silly enough to show off that she knows all the gossip to Daphne.

As if Daphne cares - Daphne wouldn't have been like Astoria even if she hadn't pitched her tent in Belle and Blaise's camp. She's always been entirely her own person, something Belle's always loved about her, and she would have made her own way.

Professor Slughorn is a jolly looking fat man, with an ugly moustache that must take hours of maintenance. Belle wonders what it was that made a man who looks used to comfort come out of retirement, and supposes Professor Dumbledore must have some heavy weight to leverage. He always does.

* * *

A letter comes on the second Monday of term from Remus. Blanchefleur chirrups the way she always does after visiting Remus, because of whatever odd treats he gives her, and picks at the pinfeathers showing at Belle's temples while she reads her letter.

"Moony says we ought to be wary of Slughorn," she says. "He wants us to be wary of Snape, too, now that he's gotten what he wanted."

"Did you ask him and Dora to look into that other concern?" Blaise asks, pouring glasses of milk for each of the three of them. "I'm sure there's something, Belle, and it's only been a week."

"I reached out to Dromeda, too," Belle says. "I thought she might be able to annoy something out of her sister, but she got back to me at the weekend - she says whatever it is, Bellatrix is involved, and Narcissa is staying quiet."

All three glance down the table to where Draco is sitting between his goons. He's pale even for him, and has been in foul humour since they got back to school, according to Blaise, which is unlike him. Belle doesn't like Draco and he doesn't like her, but he tends to be fairly affable around people he doesn't dislike. For him to be in such a bad mood, for so long? That's worrying.

And so, letters to Remus and Dora and Dromeda. There's already enough tension and fear in the school, most of it directed at anyone in a Slytherin tie, and whatever is weighing down on Draco is guaranteed to bounce back up onto everyone else. Belle would rather this year be peaceful, if possible.

"Nothing on it yet from Remus, though," she says. "He'll keep looking."

And for now, that's all they can do.

 **b)**

"Have you spoken to Belle since…?"

"No, have you?"

"I tried writing to her but she hasn't replied to any of my letters."

"Does she blame us?"

 **IV.**

Classes are very different at NEWT level as compared with OWL.

Well, that's not strictly true. Transfiguration is much the same, if a little more difficult because there's more theory and the essays are longer. Charms is similar, and Ancient Runes expands into two more runic scripts, but Defence Against the Dark Arts and Potions…

Potions is honestly more shocking than Defence Against the Dark Arts. Professor Snape is precisely as dour and unkind as usual. Even the loathing that burns under Belle's skin at the very thought of him cannot change that he's a mediocre teacher with a reasonable curriculum, and there's only so much evil he can do with that.

Professor Slughorn, meanwhile, would probably be a very good teacher if he weren't so vain of all the friends he's collected over the years. As it is, he can't stop talking about Gwenog Jones for long enough to actually teach a full class, and Belle can feel herself slipping already, not quite a month in.

"We need help," Blaise says, two stacks of notes to his right and one to his left. Belle's sitting opposite him, a similar arrangement, and Daphne is on the way back from somewhere deep in the library with a pile of books balanced under her chin. "We can't possibly be expected to do well with these poor excuses for teachers."

"All hail Minerva McGonagall," Daphne says, her books thunking down onto the desk. "And Flitwick, bless him, and Sprout."

"I _miss_ Professor Sprout," Belle sighs, digging through her bag in search of the little notebook she uses for shorthand notes in Charms. "What a wonderful, hands-on teacher. _She_ never talked for twenty minutes at a time about how many Ministers for Magic she's taught over the years."

"I miss Sinistra," Blaise sighs. "Her _notes,_ oh, I miss her notes. They were so beautiful. Clear. Concise. And those diagrams!"

"At least we're clear of Binns - remember that row you had with him over river guardianship rules in the late 1800s last year, Belle? I saw Astoria's essays for the summer, and one of them was on the same thing. He hadn't changed his notes at all."

"A nightmare," Belle agrees, starting in on her transcription of her shorthand notes into one of the beautiful cork-covered notebooks Anatole sent her. "How's Professor Burbage this year? Still mad?"

"Oh, as a bag of cats," Daphne laughs, "but she's a marvelous teacher, so I don't mind."

Another stack of books lands on the end of the table opposite Daphne, followed by the collapse of Ron Weasley into the relevant chair.

"Really laying on the homework, aren't they?" he says, and takes out ink and quill and sets to work as if he always sits with them here, in the library, on Tuesday afternoons.

Hermione Granger's arrival nearly makes Belle jump out of her skin, especially when Hermione sits at Belle's left hand side, opens her Ancient Runes book, and promptly thumps her head down into the middle of it.

"I regret," she says, "taking seven subjects."

Harry is absent, but he probably has detention. This unprompted crossing of the bridge feels as though its meant as an apology, especially when Hermione nudges her shoulder to Belle's and Ron leans across to look at Blaise's Potions notes upside-down.

"Your writing is much harder to read this way than Hermione's," he says, and that's that for the evening. It isn't a healing, but it's a beginning, and she wonders if Remus wrote to prompt it.

* * *

"Harry has meetings with Professor Dumbledore," Hermione explains. "He got called in for one this evening, else he would've been with us. We don't know what it's about."

That's a lie, but it's one she's bound to make, Belle expects. Harry can't turn around without telling Ron and Hermione, but no doubt Professor Dumbledore wants whatever secret business he has with Harry kept a secret. Belle just hopes it won't get Harry killed.

"I'm sorry, Belle," Hermione says. "About- about Sirius. About how we all reacted. By the time we got out of the hospital wing, you were gone, and every time I tried to write a letter, I couldn't find the words."

Belle shrugs - no one has had words for her except her family and Remus. Even Dora hasn't really had words. She's just had an awful lot of cake. Blaise and Daphne are waiting on her to speak, she knows, because she terrified them that morning in June. She knows she did, and she's sorry for it, but she doesn't know how to say that.

"My family raised a monument for him," she says instead. "In our orchards - I didn't know what else to do. That's all I've ever known. Dromeda says that there is a crypt in London, but…"

"But the Blacks have it," Hermione says. "Surely you've more right to it than them? The law-"

"Won't necessarily be on Belle's side," Daphne says, looping her arm protectively through Belle's as they near the stairs. "Depends on whether or not her father made a will, but it could be that she isn't his heir without one."

"But she's his daughter!" Hermione exclaims, catching Belle by the wrist and tugging her to a halt. "Belle, your his _child,_ the only Black of the main line left-"

"And I'm illegitimate, Hermione," Belle reminds her. "There's a reason I'm not comfortable with using Papa's name - it isn't mine to claim, not technically. He never had a chance to legally claim me as his, since he was on the run from the law all the time he knew about me."

"Potter being his godson might present an issue as well," Daphne says. "Big inheritances like this have passed along those lines before. Belle being neither male nor legitimate might come against her - we won't know until the solicitors get into it."

"Where do you even begin to look for an inheritance solicitor in the wizarding world?" Hermione asks. "There can't be so many as all that."

"Our family has a solicitor on retainer. He's been our representative for… Oh, two hundred years or so."

" _What?"_

"A vampire?" Daphne guesses. "All the best ones are. They grow old and don't forget, and they think just a little bit sideways - makes them unstoppable against a human."

Blaise and Ron are bickering about something to do with the Ravenclaw Quidditch team - probably about whether or not Slytherin can beat them - as Hermione and Daphne sink into a sharp, thoughtful discussion about just how tangled the inheritance laws are, and Belle thinks- maybe. If this is normal, maybe she won't fear school anymore.

* * *

 _Belle -_ _If you're lucky, Slug'll ignore you. He likes shiny trophies he can show off in high society, and since you've got a feathery little problem, you might not fit into his club._ _There's worse than him. But don't trust him._ _As for Severus, I'm afraid I'm in the dark. He's wanted that job for years, and now that he's finally got it, I suppose the power might go to his head. We can't know. Keep an eye, and let me know if he lets the bad side out - I'll do what I can._ _One thing I can definitely do is send you notes to help with class. I'm told I was quite good at teaching, and I miss it. Let me help however I can, and share whatever I send you with your friends. I can ask around and find help for anything else you need, too - just let me know._ _I've had a letter from your mother, asking who her solicitor should talk to. She seems to be under the impression that you'll need to challenge for Sirius' estate? I can't imagine that anyone else will claim it. Bellatrix can't, not with the Ministry hunting her, Andromeda wouldn't want it, and Narcissa can't afford it at the moment, not with the Malfoy estate tied up in guaranteeing Lucius' freedom. There's no one else close enough to fight you for it. Harry might have standing - it's happened before - but he's probably wealthier than anyone in Hogwarts, with all that Sleakeazy money. He doesn't need it._ _Even so - I've put her in touch with the right people. I hope it isn't necessary, but as your godfather, it's my duty to help you in everything._ _Even if I wasn't duty-bound, I'd help._ _With love,_ _Moony_ _PS: I've done some digging. Can't find anything specific about your mystery, but I'll keep asking around._

* * *

"Quidditch training tomorrow," Blaise says, when he and Daphne have found hot chocolates somewhere, and the three of them are tucked together on one of the big couches by the fireplace. They've made a habit of hovering near the seventh years, if only because Pansy won't try to bother Belle when there's someone who seems like an authority at hand. Flora Carrow has been enormously useful in that regard - her name carries as much dread as Belle's, but Flora is a very different animal than anyone else in their house. She _could_ be just as terrible as the aunt and uncle Daphne whispers were part of Voldemort's torture squad, but she could also simply be snooty and aloof, as her father apparently is.

Either way, she's useful as an ally. Belle just trusts her as much as she does Professors Slughorn and Snape.

As to Quidditch training, well, Belle only hums in agreement - she hasn't flown all summer, and the whole league was such a joke last year that it barely happened, and the year before _that_ the Triwizard tournament knocked them all out before they'd even begun…

She isn't sure she _can_ play Quidditch anymore. She isn't sure she wants to.

"I've dug out my little flags, just for you," Daphne says. "So I expect to see you on that broom, Bellona de Poitiers-Black, or I shall be very cross indeed."

* * *

Belle's Quidditch robes have become too short, and since she can't just charm them longer, she'll have to order new - from Malkins', more's the pity - and wear something secondhand until then.

The only ones narrow enough in the shoulder but also long enough in the arm to fit have a neat little _R.A.B._ stitched into the collar, which makes Belle feel a little bit ill. She hadn't known her uncle played Quidditch. She wonders what position he played. Chaser, maybe, since she has seen enough photographs to know that he wasn't so tall as Papa.

Roman Urquhart, their new and unexpected captain, isn't the worst sort. He's big, and not very bright, but he's reasonably fair - he's one of Flora Carrow's crew, and Flora's not one for irrational dislikes, mostly. His family are fantastically wealthy, so perhaps his appointment as captain has something to do with Professor Slughorn's influence, but Belle doesn't mind.

The alternative, after all, would be Draco. He's the senior-most member of the squad, except herself and Blaise, and they were never going to get near the captain's armband. Draco would love it, though, having that little bit more authority than previously, and having such specific authority over herself and Blaise.

Her surprise when Roman announces Draco's retirement from the squad is therefore unfeigned. Even without the grandeur of being Slytherin's Seeker, Draco loves the sport unabashedly, with an enthusiasm she's never known him to show for anything else. That he's stopped playing feels like a very, very bad omen.

But it does raise the question of who will _replace_ him as their Seeker. The temptation to make a stab at it is overwhelming, especially given she _knows_ she's wasted as Keeper, but the fear of what new nonsense will arise if she shows just how good she is in the air keeps her silent, and in front of the goals.

Darius Harper will have to do. Harry, Cho Chang, even Summerby of Hufflepuff, they'll all fly rings around him, but he'll do. Belle doesn't care enough for her house to take the risk.

"I understand, I think," Blaise says, as they trudge back into the showers with their Firebolts over their shoulders. "But you would be amazing, Belle. Just something to consider if Gryffindor tank us."

* * *

Gryffindor tank them. Bellona does her best, but there isn't much she can do when her idiot teammates don't bloody well score, and Harry takes the Snitch.

Somehow, Crabbe and idiot Goyle still try to turn it on her, as does Darius bloody Harper - she's so very glad of Blaise, who socks Harper in the jaw, and for Roman Urquhart, who is doubtless under instruction from Flora Carrow to keep Pansy and Draco's cronies away from her. Vaisey, at least, is silent, even before Roman makes a point of reminding the others than it was not Belle's duty to score today.

It irks her, somewhat, that Ron kept a clean sheet when she could not. She _knows_ that she's a better Keeper than she showed today, especially since Gryffindor only have one really good Chaser now - of course it's Ginny Weasley - and she knows for a fact that there isn't anyone in the school who's her equal in the air, not even Harry.

She feels all jangled up, wearing her dead uncle's robes and looking more like her father's murderer by the day, and now even the thing that has always come most naturally to her seems beyond her reach. What kind of Veela's daughter is she, if she can't outfly all these humans?

She manages to shower - she gets her own cubicle, because the boys are polite like that - and scrubs at her hair with a towel in place of drying it. Blaise appears behind her, braiding it back neatly while she ties up her boots, and he takes away her uncle's robes before she can set them alight. She feels like trying it, uneven and queasy in a way she can't explain, and it warms her just a little that he knows her well enough to see it.

Once her hair is a cold, heavy weight along her spine, Blaise pulls her to her feet by both hands, and tucks her under his arm. Together, in their Lelong robes, they're stronger, and she feels just a little better as they make their way into the corridor outside the changing rooms. But-

Ginny Weasley is in the corridor outside. She's talking to the other Chaser, Katie Bell, and it's just bad timing that Belle hears her. Bad luck. But she still hears.

"-for Black, well - she was rubbish, wasn't she? I thought she was fairly good, but she's so caught up in her own head that she's lost her touch."

"Didn't she lose her father over the summer?" Katie Bell says. "I heard that - I was surprised to see her flying at all, Gin."

"She isn't the only person grieving," Ginny says, and Bellona's temper flares so bright and so hot that it whites out her vision until Blaise and- and _Harry_ are slamming her back against the nearest wall.

"Belle! Belle! Stop! Belle, _stop!"_

Blaise's arms are straining with the effort of holding her back, and Harry grunts when her flailing foot connects with his knee.

"He is _mine,"_ Belle chokes out, heat gathered in her hands, feathers pushing out through her hair, "he is _mine to mourn!"_

Harry jerks away at that, and Blaise lets her go as well. She runs - ha, _flies_ \- down the corridor, out across all the great green lawns, until the lake comes into view. There is a tree there, where she has sat many times since she came to Hogwarts. It reminds her of Valence, and of Rennes, and of Taivolkovski, because it is old and it is quiet, and she has not been able to come here this year because the stillness is too much like the Judas tree that shadows her father's shade.

She goes there now, though, tucks herself into a gap between two thick, over-the-ground roots, and presses her face into her hands.

She cries. She isn't sure for how long, but she does cry. When she lifts her head to catch her breath, she finds Neville Longbottom sitting on the root to her right, with a brown paper bag of sweets in his hand.

"Pear drops," he says, shaking the bag at her. "They won't help, but they taste nice."

She takes a pink pear drop from the bag, and then takes the handkerchief Neville holds out to her.

"Everyone is looking for you," he says. "I remembered finding you out here before, though. Remember when I was afraid of you?"

"I'd've thought I was scarier now, Neville Longbottom," she says, cleaning her face - but not her nose - with Neville's bright yellow hankie. "I can make fireballs now, did you know that?"

"I heard about Umbridge's quills," he says, smiling. The smile falls away quite quickly, though, and he swings his far leg over the root so he's facing her. "It's horrible, Belle. I know that. I'm not one of your friends, but I might understand a bit better than most."

"I'm going to kill her. Bellatrix."

"Someone should," Neville says, as if she hasn't said something terrible, something monstrous. "Come on - let's let everyone know you're safe. You'll catch your death, sitting out here with wet hair."

She lets him help her up, and lets him throw an arm around her shoulders and guide her inside. He's so warm, and so gentle with her, that she doesn't quite stop crying.

"You can come upstairs with me, if you want," he says. "Everyone will be celebrating, they won't even notice."

Daphne and Blaise are waiting for her on the bottom step of the main staircase, though, and jerk to their feet as soon as they see her.

"Longbottom," Daphne says, in the voice she reserves for being snooty, but friendly.

"Greengrass," Neville replies. "She'll be fine. We all are, eventually."

He walks away with his hands in his pockets, somehow melting back into quiet, blushing Longbottom by the time he's halfway up the stairs, and then he's gone.

Belle finds his brown paper bag of pear drops in her pocket as they make their way down to the common room, and that sets her off crying again.

 **V.**

 _Chouette,_ Anatole begins every letter. His handwriting is very elegant, bold and slanting, and he prefers a dark blue ink that is almost black, but not quite.

 _Chouette,_ _Your Daphne wrote me a letter. She says that you've come to something of a breakthrough. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you for it, ma petite, but Amand and I are going to be on your side of the Channel the week after next - you should have a visit to Hogsmeade around then, shouldn't you? I should like to see you, and I should like to remind all these fools of classmates of yours that your papa might be gone, but your family is not._ _Yvette_ \- this being Amand's niece, whose papa is Amand's little brother but whose mama is a witch with a laugh that would charm the stars from the sky - _was asking after you just last week, wondering how you manage in far-away England. She is sad that you cannot ski, and that there are no other Veela. I worry the same._ _Well, not that you cannot ski. I've seen you on skis before, mon ange, and I would not take that risk again._ _Amand was baking again, and reluctantly entrusted a few treats to your Daphne's owl after a great deal of convincing. Share them out as you see fit, and know that we love you._ _With all my love,_ _Anatole._

* * *

Maman has sent one care package a week, in response to Belle's weekly letters, since the start of term. Mostly they are food, or books, or charms from the family side of the vault, or pages of Grand-mère's poetry. Sometimes they are clothes, or upgrades for her broom, or new earrings from the jewellers in Marseille that she likes best.

The Wednesday before she is due to meet Anatole and Amand in Hogsmeade, there is another care package. Blanchfleur preens on Belle's shoulder as she unwraps a clafoutis in a delicately enamelled dish - Tante Metis' work - and an elegantly wrapped assortment of macarons from Tante Leto. There's also mendiants from Grand-mère, and a box of pralines from Maman, and then something else wrapped in a square of black silk patterned with white fleur-de-lis.

Inside the black silk is a stack of letters. Letters in Maman's handwriting, and letters in Papa's handwriting.

She cries again at that. Daphne tucks all the food away into the bag they've taken to bringing to breakfast on Wednesday mornings, and Blaise passes a handkerchief across the table. They do it all without speaking, and she loves them for it.

* * *

 _Belley -_ _Dora tells me the two of you have been miserying together. Good show. A burden shared is a burden halved, and if the two of you are sharing two burdens, well - it's always easier to carry someone else's weight, isn't it?_ _I also hear Slytherin lost their last Quidditch match, and to Gryffindor at that! A shame you didn't push to become Seeker, sweetheart. I've heard nothing but good things about your flying. I hear Narcissa's boy is no slouch in the air either, but he's also an idiot, if he's anything like his parents, and we could do worse than having you step in. If he has any sense at all, he'll step aside._ _My Ted thinks I push you to be too aggressive. Maybe I do, but you're a Black, little love, and named for a goddess of war. We're a fierce bunch, even when we don't turn to the dark like my stupid sisters have. Don't be afraid of that._ _With love,_ _Auntie Dromeda_

* * *

"So," Belle says, passing neat slices of clafoutis around the table in the library - they'll have to keep an eye out for Madam Pince, but sharing cake and sweets with her abruptly wider circle of friends is easier here than it would be just about anywhere else in the school. It's November, and it's raining out, and bloody cold to boot, so she's huddled down with Blaise and Daphne, with Ron and Hermione, and with Harry, all of them trying to sneak their treats behind sheets of notes and upheld book covers. "So, Daphne has been trying to set up a Duelling Club since September. Have any of you thought about joining?"

"Harry and Hermione have been too busy with the Slug Club," Ron says to his Potions notes - Blaise's notes, really, since Ron is perhaps the worst notetaker Belle's ever met - with a sour twist to his mouth. "But I'll come along if it doesn't clash with Quidditch training."

Ah, the Slug Club. Blaise and Daphne have both received invitations - him for wealth, her for prestige, both for their beauty and intelligence - while Belle has not, because she has wealth, prestige, beauty, and intelligence, but her father is a wrongly convicted murderer and her mother is not human. Professor Slughorn's collection is less dangerous than Professor Dumbledore's, and the people in it are more able to defend themselves from any malice or particular consideration by their patron, but it makes her uneasy nonetheless.

"Well, Daph has to take that into consideration, so I'm sure it won't be an issue."

"I've approval from everyone except Professor Dumbledore," Daphne says, holding a sheet of tracing paper up to the light and squinting at the frankly terrifying plant she's copying out of her Herbology book. "He won't see me, probably because while my family aren't Death Eaters, they _did_ pay bail for several who were arrested in the Department of Mysteries. My sister is also moving in those circles, which doesn't help."

"And you're my friend," Belle agrees. "He didn't trust my father, and he doesn't trust me. That's another nail in your coffin, Daph."

"And we're Slytherins," Blaise chimes in. "No one else ever forgets it, so I don't see why he would."

Harry looks uncomfortable, fidgeting with his quill, and Ron a little mutinous, but Hermione's jaw is set. It looks like temper, but something about the tilt of her head makes Belle think that maybe, just maybe, it isn't with them.

* * *

Jeanne's letters are written half in French, in the Latin alphabet, and half in Greek, to help Belle learn the language. Belle's are half in French and half in English for the same reason, and they're muddling through

 _Cousin -_ _Tante Juno tells me Oncle Anatole is to visit you - how rude of him not to let me know! I would have sent things to Valence for him to bring to you had I known. Bampás says that he will arrange for me to visit in the New Year, if that suits, but for now, know that I shall hardly speak to Anatole at Christmas. Just don't tell him why._ _Tante Metis has forbidden the twins from visiting Kapan - they ran away, and got as far as me, here in Athens, before she and Grand-mère caught them up. Imagine! The silly little fools thought they could run away just like that, as though there are not rules around this sort of thing. Artemisia had some grand scheme to get them all the way to Armenia without being found, and Apollonia thought she could fight off whoever was sent in pursuit of them. Can you imagine?_ _Yaya wouldn't let me watch the fight, but Artemisia crashed down and broke her arm, and Apollonia dislocated her shoulder. Grand-mère was the angriest I've ever seen her, so angry that even Metis seemed frightened of her, and Apollonia tried to get out of it by crying, just as she always has. That seemed to make Grand-mère even angrier, and now she's talking about calling us all home. Me from the academy, you from your school, even Anatole from Rennes - something has her scared, Bellona, and that alone is enough to frighten me. Maman will tell me nothing, your mother even less, and as for Metis, well - she has ever been Grand-mère's strong right hand. She will never betray Grand-mère's confidence, not even to us._ _Apollonia thinks Grand-mère is going mad. She says that the house is locked down, that no one comes in or out without approval. The vault is full to bursting, and the cottages are being cleaned out as if preparing for guests. Do you ever remember there being guests allowed to stay for so long that we needed the cottages? I don't. I asked Maman, and she was willing to admit that the last time, so far as she knows, was during the Second Muggle War._ _Is this because of this new war in England, Belle? I've never seen her this way before. Please be safe - losing you would be bad enough, but I think your loss would cost us Grand-mère as well._ _With love (and baklava!),_ _Jeanne_

* * *

Amand is wearing a simple, elegant cloak in a warm shade of russet-brown, the hood lined with fox fur. His boots are worn, sturdy and old, and Bellona remembers the cool October evening they collected those boots from a cobbler's in Rennes, before she had even considered Hogwarts.

Anatole, however, is wearing the most absurd cloak, black with a sharp white pinstripe, ermine bright in the hood, and white satin lining. Underneath, he's all in black, from his silk shirt to his shiny new boots, and he's obviously been washing his hair in lemon juice, because it's never been so fair before.

"Hello, chouette!" he calls, waving from their place outside the Three Broomsticks. "Here, ma petite!"

"Mortifying," Belle says, but she can't manage to hide her smile, or keep herself from running the last few steps into his arms. "You look absurd, Anatole."

"He's making a statement, apparently," Amand says, stealing her away for a hug of his own. "Making sure everyone remembers that you're a de Poitiers."

"They don't think in heraldry and history here," Belle chides Anatole. "Not the way we do at home. What's all this about the twins?"

Anatole knows less even than Jeanne had - he didn't know about Artemisia's arm, or Apollonia's shoulder - but he shares her concern for Grand-mère. Bellona cannot imagine Grand-mère as anything but the same unassailable fortress who was so wholly cut off from her as a little girl, but who has grown to love her just as much as she does Jeanne.

Blaise and Daphne keep Amand entertained while Anatole fills Belle in on Grand-mère's latest adventures. It does sound as if she's become a little more fierce, but not because of unfounded fear, as Jeanne thought - more because the giants have been coming down out of the mountains, the hags descending from their crags, and all manner of creature and person has climbed out of their holes to wreak havoc on their way to the Channel.

"The Muggles think it's an unusual spate of bad weather, or something similar. You know how they are at explaining away things that don't make sense without magic. Maman is offering sanctuary to any of the other families who might need it."

"Veela families?"

"Any families," Anatole says. "Well, not the wholly wizarding families, but those like us - those like you. Because of you, she is taking part in this war. A distant, safe part, but a part nonetheless. She's making the estate into a sanctuary. When it is needed, she will throw open our gates to those in need, and shut them against those who would do harm."

There's something almost unbearable in the sweetness of that, in the kindness of Grand-mère's heart, but of course Anatole ruins the moment by digging into his absurd cloak and drawing out a thick file of gilt-edged documents.

"Your mother sent this, by the way," he says, passing it into her hands. "It's from Monsieur Camenzind, about your father's estate. Apparently, there's another claimant. His solicitors are insisting that the whole belongs to him, but Monsieur Camenzind has never let something like legal precedent stop him."

Monsieur Camenzind lives in wizarding Zürich, and has done for the better part of three centuries. He's a great wedge of a man, with legs as long as Belle is tall, and a grey, solemn face. He's been the family solicitor since before he became a vampire, and has always shown a fondness for the family that none of his human clients are lucky enough to see. Belle's a little gleeful at the idea of loosing him on the unsuspecting legal team Harry's put together, truth be told.

"He thinks he can win?"

"He's lost twice in three-hundred-and-forty years, Bellona," Anatole says. " _I_ think he can win."

* * *

They end up huddled around a table in the Three Broomsticks, Anatole on the Firewhiskey while the rest of them have stuck to Butterbeers. Anatole keeps forgetting that Blaise and Daphne aren't fluent French speakers, not the way she and Amand are, and he speaks so quickly that even Belle, out of the habit, has to consider before she answers.

"Aha!" he says, rising suddenly. "The traitor!"

Harry stops on his way past their table, Ron and Hermione almost running into his back.

"Me?" he asks. "I didn't do anything. Did I?"

Belle's still feeling a little frosty toward Harry - it's been much easier to reconcile with Ron and Hermione, and she hates that it's because they never laid claim to her father in the way Harry did. The way Harry _still does._

"Sit with us," Daphne offers, sweeping out a welcoming hand. "We'll make room - do you know Belle's uncles? This is Amand, and the dramatic one is Anatole."

"The _drunk_ one is Anatole," Blaise says, nudging closer to Amand and bringing Belle with him by the seat. He and Daphne are glowing, bright-cheeked and shiny-eyed with the warmth of the Butterbeer, and they're cosy and safe against Belle's sides, pinning her in and guarding her. "Daph is right - sit with us. We promise not to bite."

Harry makes a dive for the space nearest Daphne, furthest from Anatole, and Ron and Hermione crowd in. Ron, as usual, is taking it all in stride, and seems pleased enough to have a table at all.

"Isn't this nice," Hermione says nervously, trilling a high little laugh that Belle has never, ever heard from her before. "How do you do?"

"What did you mean, _traitor?"_ Ron asks. "Is this about Quidditch?"

"It's about what's right," Anatole says, swaying just a little. "And it's about what's _fair."_

"It's about Bellona's inheritance, isn't it?" Hermione asks, because she's always been the clever one. "Has there been some movement?"

"Harry's solicitors are pushing back," Blaise says, as Amand attempts to shush Anatole. "They think his claim is better. It's a matter of precedent, per the English courts, but since this is crossing the Channel… We'll see."

"What do you mean?" Harry asks. "Belle, I haven't _got_ any solicitors."

"You have my father's house, though," Belle says, as evenly as she can. "And while you maybe don't have access to his vault in Gringotts, you have the Black seat in parliament. My family only want me to have what's mine, Harry. This isn't… It isn't _personal."_

"But- but they told me you didn't _want_ the house," Harry says. "They said you didn't want it, because Sirius hated it so much - I didn't much want it either, but at least it can be useful."

Professor Dumbledore, then. Just as she suspected.


	7. Christmas 1996 - All unhappy families

**I.**

This club Harry's solicitors insisted on as a neutral ground is, of course, not neutral. It is in London, and the very air of the place feels old and wizarding and male.

Bellona sits across the table from Harry, who looks very out of place in his typically shabby clothes. Of course Mrs. Weasley is with him, and his solicitors - two of them, women, with elegant haircuts and beautifully cut robes. According to Daphne, they're the latest in a long line of very, very talented solicitors, and Shacklebolt & Selwyn represent just about everyone who's anyone in wizarding England.

Belle might be a little more intimidated if not for Monsieur Camenzind, but it is hard to find even two such women as Mademoiselle Léonie and Mademoiselle Ariel Shacklebolt frightening when Monsieur Camenzind is sipping from a dark-tinted glass and smiling with his very sharp teeth.

"The issue is not precedent," he says, balancing his pen between the tips of his index fingers. "The issue is direct inheritance. My client is the natural heir of the deceased, and in his original will-"

" Our client is named as inheritor," Mademoiselle Léonie cuts in. She speaks, and Mademoiselle Ariel watches and takes notes, and Belle thinks it likely that Mademoiselle Ariel is by far the more dangerous. "In the deceased's original and only will, he named Mr. Harry James Potter as his inheritor. Therefore, Mr. Potter is his heir."

"When your office eventually sent me a copy of the deceased's will, Ms. Shacklebolt, I noticed a clause-"

"A clause rendered invalid by your client's illegitimacy-"

"I'm sure your English courts would love to have the old debate over "legal heirs" versus "heirs of the body" rehashed. Again."

Maman wraps her arm over Belle's shoulders and squeezes tight as the solicitors bicker back and forth. Harry looks almost queasy on his side of the table, and Mrs. Weasley is frowning - but for once, not at Belle.

Instead, she's frowning at Harry's solicitors. Unexpected.

Harry is also frowning now, looking between all the solicitors and then down to the table, all covered in forms and letters.

They are drawing looks from other patrons - Monsieur Camenzind and Mademoiselle Léonie are truly arguing now, and Belle would be a little embarrassed, if she cared about the opinions of such horrible old men as are gathered here.

Mademoiselle Ariel makes a note and pushes it across the table to Monsieur Camenzind. It makes him laugh, whatever it is, and he and Mademoiselle Léonie are rising from their seats in temper when Harry clears his throat.

"I don't know if it matters," he says. "But I think Sirius would have wanted everything to go to Bellona, and it isn't as if I need the money."

He turns to Belle then, shrugging.

"Apparently, I have a house in Cornwall. My grandparents' house."

"I hear Cornwall is very lovely," Belle offers, wondering how in the world Harry could be unaware of his family's holdings. Belle has always known that, despite being Jeanne's elder, despite being the sole heir to Grand-mère's heir, she will never inherit the duchy, but she knows the ins and outs of it all the same. Harry is the only Potter left - surely someone thought to make him aware of his wealth?

"I've never been. I didn't even know where my family's money came from until yesterday. It's all been very surprising - I can't wait to tell Aunt Petunia that my dad was rich. She'll be furious."

Both sisters Shacklebolt round on him in shock, and Mrs. Weasley looks equal parts pained and proud. Belle does not know any specifics, but she understands that the Weasleys are not wealthy - Ron's several-decades out-of-style dress robes for the Yule Ball had drawn derision from Draco for weeks, so much so that Belle still remembers them well - and so she understands why Mrs. Weasley would not be pleased to see Harry signing away such wealth as Papa inherited from his parents.

The pride is probably that he is doing the right thing.

"So really, Mr. Camenzind," Harry says, butchering the pronunciation but bravely making the attempt, "we don't need to fight over this - Belle can have it. I don't want it."

Monsieur Camenzind looks a little disappointed that it isn't going to court, but he disappears off with the Mademoiselles Shacklebolt to finalise the transfer all the same.

"If I'd known, I'd never have accepted it," Harry says, when it's just him and Belle and Mrs. Weasley and Maman. "But Professor Dumbledore came to visit me over the summer, and he had all these forms, and he told me that you'd signed off on the house. It made sense that you wouldn't want it - I know how much Sirius hated the house. I didn't even think about the money, Belle, I really didn't, and then when all the lawyers appeared they started telling me about the company my grandfather founded-"

"So you are a Sleakeazy Potter," Maman says. "I had wondered."

"I didn't even know that I should be wondering," Harry says, shrugging. "But it's all sorted now, isn't it? We're all alright now, aren't we?"

Are they? Belle isn't sure, but for Hermione's sake, for Ron's and Remus', and for the sake of Papa's memory, she supposes they have to be.

"Yes," she says. "Yes, we are."

The solicitors, from the little room where they've sequestered themselves, erupt into another shouting match. Maman and Mrs. Weasley sigh in concert, and then share a tired sort of look.

"All the same, regardless of species," Maman says archly, which makes Mrs. Weasley laugh. That alone makes Belle feel a great deal more hopeful.

* * *

They all stop outside the horrible club, Maman's arm locked tight with Belle's and Mrs. Weasley's arm looped neatly through Harry's. The solicitors are still arguing, but Monsieur Camenzind assured Maman that it is mostly just for show at this stage.

"We are bringing family to London for Christmas," Maman says. "To Bellona's house. If you are not already invited elsewhere, we should be glad to have you."

It is a great effort for Maman to say this, not only because Mrs. Weasley has been unwelcoming to Bellona but because Madame Appoline wrote to Maman and told her how the Weasleys behaved toward the Delacours over the summer. Belle has had letters from Fleur as well, and is amazed that she didn't lose her temper with the Weasleys. Belle doesn't think she could have tolerated being called Phlegm , no matter how much she loved someone. the best thing that ever happened to any of these people, and they should be keenly aware of it.

"You can meet my grandmother," Belle offers to Harry. "And my cousin Jeanne, and my grandfather as well - my family are all coming. They're going to help me cleanse the house."

"We cleaned the house quite well last year," Mrs. Weasley says, just a little snippy, and Maman laughs.

"I am sure you did, Madame Weasley," she says, "but there is cleaning, and there is cleansing - Veela fire can cut through curses. We have been testing things since last Christmas, when Bellona's fire burned the wall at her father's house."

"If you can remove that horrific portrait of Sirius' mother, I'll buy you a whole case of Firewhiskey," Mrs. Weasley says. "Anything that can do that is a miracle."

 **II.**

Christmas Day dawns dull and a little rainy, but Belle doesn't mind the weather. The house is bright with noise, and Grand-mère and Ukki are already arguing somewhere upstairs. Aleksi and Anatole are laughing together as they arrange the final few decorations, strings of tiny golden bells that chime softly with Vive le Vent and Douce Nuit. Maman and the aunts are singing brightly as they arrange the gifts under and around the tree in the parlour, and the twins are whispering secrets to one another on their perch on the counter at the far end of the kitchen.

Jeanne has all her perfect starlight hair gathered up into an enormous twist on top of her head, and her sleeves are rolled back to her elbows. Even she cannot wear a festive apron without looking absurd, however, and there is something comforting in that.

The knot of Belle's hair atop her own head is bigger and much messier than Jeanne's, and her apron even more ridiculous - Jeanne's is as tasteful as a vinyl Mrs. Claus can be, but Belle purposely chose the ugliest pattern of dancing snowmen and elves she could find. Only Jeanne seems to find it as funny as she does.

"I've spelled the door to keep Anatole and Amand out," she says, to which Jeanne nods sharply. Then, turning to the twins, "and if you two lazy bitches don't help, I'll throw you out as well."

Apollonia rolls her eyes and sighs dramatically, but Artemisia's poisonous silence is much more worrisome. Oh well. Even if Artemisia entirely loses her temper, Jeanne is stronger and a much, much better fighter than her, and Belle's gotten very good at all kinds of useful spells and hexes, thanks to Harry's clever lessons last year, and her own careful study, hidden in whispers with Blaise and Daphne.

"I won't tolerate you getting in the way," she warns them, because Tante Metis insisted on their helping Belle and Jeanne prepare dinner despite their strident disinterest. "So either you help, or you get out and face your mother. The decision is yours."

"They want to wait here until Blaise arrives," Jeanne says. "It is more fancying him than fear of their mother than keeps them here."

"Blaise finds you both insufferable," Belle says, both because it is true and because it will infuriate them. "He likes me best, and then Jeanne, and then Amand."

"I don't see how you could be anyone's favourite, Bellona," Artemisia says, in her nasty little way. "A silly thing like you-"

"Says the girl who thought it best to fly directly into an oncoming fireball as a means of defence," Jeanne says. "That's quite enough of you, Artemisia. Get over here and start peeling potatoes."

Artemisia settles deeper into her hunch atop the counter until Jeanne singes the ends of her hair, and then she and Apollonia dive for the sink to avoid Jeanne's continuing wrath.

Their visitors are due to arrive sometime around one o'clock, and Belle and Jeanne have everything planned down to the last moment, so they can lay out their amuses-bouches. They have a few minutes planned to dress one another's hair and change into their dresses, and Maman and Tante Leto will probably do something over-the-top to try and outdo Tante Metis and whatever absurd gift she will give to the twins. Belle just hopes Maman gets it out of her system before everyone else arrives.

* * *

Dora and Dromeda arrive first, Dromeda in the most fantastic bright green velvet and Dora in subtle, elegant charcoal grey, plain and sombre and completely unlike her. Dromeda gives Belle a significant look over Dora's shoulder, and scowls with superb venom at Remus when he pokes his head around the door not ten minutes later.

Ted Tonks, who ambled in just before Remus, smelling more than a little of pipe smoke, greets Belle with a hug and an absent-minded kiss on the cheek, and a very large bottle of whiskey.

"I know you're a little young," he says, eyeing Dromeda warningly, "but you might need it by the end of the day."

Jeanne loops her arm through Remus' and guides him away from Dora and Dromeda. She and Bellona had the same lessons in hosting from Grand-mère as girls, but they've never really had a chance to put them into practice until now. Belle isn't sure which one of them is more excited, but she is certain that they are equally determined to prove themselves worthy students.

"I could kill Artemisia for wearing that," Jeanne hisses as she passes with a tray of delicate little Laguiole and sweet onion tarts. Artemisia's hideous frilly blouse is a scandal of ugly Italian fashion, and even Tante Metis is making no attempt to defend it - a true sign that it is unforgivable. "How dare she!"

"At least Apollonia's pride wouldn't allow her to match it," Belle comforts her, passing a platter of blinis to Anatole - she needs her hands free to answer the door, after all. "Take comfort in that, J - and everyone else looks well enough to distract from her."

"The end of the world itself could not distract from that, " Aleksi says, taking Jeanne's tray and kissing her brow. "Go, pupu, drag her upstairs before you make yourself sick with worry, go."

Jeanne very literally drags Artemisia along with her when she charges for the stairs, and Belle kisses Aleksi's cheek before running to the door.

Madam Sofia is glorious in red damask, and Blaise his usual elegant self in his preferred blue-and-black. Belle's pocket is heavier once Madam Sofia releases her, and Blaise arches a knowing eyebrow when she rolls her eyes.

"You're glowing, Belle," he says, leaning down to kiss her cheek. "Mama bought me a new camera for Christmas, so I'll take as many photos as I can to prove to Daph that you've remembered how to smile."

She thumps him in the arm for that, but locks her elbow with his as well and pulls him down toward the kitchen. Kreacher is grumbling somewhere under the sink, and her grandmother's portrait raves intermittently, silenced only by whispered threats from Dromeda and the sudden spark of fire in a passing de Poitiers' hand.

The kitchen is heavy with steam and smell, and Belle is quick to put Blaise to work - he has such a deft hand with pastry that she sets him up with the desserts. The buche de Noël is already done, of course, and the heavy English fruitcake, but there are religieuses to be made, and a profiterole tower, and Belle has to arrange and garnish the tuilles, and Jeanne will scream if anything happens to her beautifully shiny little macarons in all their rainbow of colours. There are pipparkakku made to Aleksi's recipe, and joulotorttu made to Ukki's. Blaise sent her his aunt's recipe for syrniki, and brought with him a jar of splendid looking raspberry coulis, and the carefully balanced tin under his arm reveals the most scrumptious smelling medovik.

"Is that honey cake?" Jeanne asks, breathless from her efforts to right Artemisia's sartorial wrongs. "Oh, Blaise, I could kiss you!"

Dessert is well in hand, then, and so Jeanne and Belle return their efforts to the starters - two choices of soup, a salade Niçoise for those so inclined, more of Jeanne's sublime little tarts, scallops awaiting searing, smoked salmon and crusty bread, and hearty stuffed potato skins for the hungrier among them - and the main. They have a turkey, because heaven forbid the English not have their turkey on Christmas day, but also quail stuffed with foie-gras, a venison loin, rich chestnut stuffing, potatoes cooked three ways, and as many kinds of vegetables as they could find fresh and to their particular standards when Anatole and Amand brought them shopping the day before Christmas Eve.

"How many are there for dinner?" Blaise asks, surveying their feast with a slightly sceptical air. "You've enough to feed half of London here, Belle."

"Well, there is all of us, which is twelve," Jeanne says. "Yourself and your maman, which is fourteen."

"Dromeda's family makes seventeen, and Remus eighteen," Belle adds. "And then the Weasleys - so another six - and Harry and Hermione is two more, which means twenty-six."

"And possibly Fleur," Jeanne reminds her.

"Oh, and maybe Fleur and her fiance, who is another Weasley, so either twenty-six or twenty-eight."

"Where are you going to put them?" Blaise asks, which until yesterday had been something of a conundrum.

"Hermione helped me play a little trick on the house," Belle assures him. "Worry not, Blaise, there will be plenty of room for all of us."

* * *

There is room for all of them, and more than enough food - even Ron Weasley's unconquerable appetite is defeated, and even Ginny Weasley scrounges up a compliment or two for Belle and Jeanne's cooking.

They all settle into the parlour after dinner - tricked, just as the dining room was, by one of worryingly-absent Hermione's clever spells, and three times as big as it was this time last year - and everyone shares out their gifts. Belle receives a huge amount of jewellery, from the dark sapphire bracelet Madam Sofia slipped into her pocket at the door to beautiful diamond-headed hair pins from Jeanne, and an array of scarves and socks from Tante Metis.

Bellona cannot remember when last she had a gift of any sort from Tante Metis, and decides that she will accept this in the spirit of the season.

From Maman there is a new set of dress robes - brilliant bright silver silk, which makes the aunts gasp.

"Juno!" Leto exclaims. "However did you source that? They said they'd never sell to us again, after the incident in Zagreb!"

Maman smiles, smug in a way Belle recognises more than she'd like from the mirror, and leans back into her chair.

"Those merfolk are not the only ones who farm pen shells," she says. "I found an alternate source. That is all you need know, little sister."

Sea-silk! Grand-mère has a gown of sea-silk, a filmy thing of purest white that Ukki gave her a very long time ago, when they were courting, but she keeps it tucked away in a sealed box for fear of the moths, and for greater fear of it being stolen. They have better access to sea-silk than the Muggles, of course, but it is still rare and highly prized simply for how difficult it is to produce.

Maman went not only to great trouble but to enormous expense to source this cloth, and that she did that - and brought it to Mademoiselle Lelong, too, because there is her card in the box! - has Belle almost in tears.

"I cannot accept this, Maman," she says, barely daring to touch the beautiful, beautiful robes. "It is too much!"

"Well, it won't fit anyone else, chouette," Anatole says, looping his arms over her shoulders from behind. "And no one else would look so striking as you in that colour, so I suppose you must suffer through receiving such a lovely gift, no?"

"Do you know, there are some sapphires in the Black vault that would set that silver off just beautifully," Dromeda says. "A choker and earrings at least, and I think a headpiece of some sort as well. I remember my mother wearing them, before your grandmother stopped letting the rest of the family access the vault."

"Like you would've worn anything like that, Mum," Dora says, perching on the arm of the couch with a little smile. "I don't think you've worn anything expensive since before I was born."

"Probably would've sold them," Dromeda agrees, completely without shame. Belle admires that about her - it isn't arrogance, or the Black haughtiness she keeps hearing about. It's a simple assurance of who she is that keeps Dromeda's head high and her smile warm, and Belle thinks there is a great deal herself and Dora could learn from that.

"It would be nice for you to have something of your grandmother's to wear, Bellona," Maman says, drawing her back. "Even if she does seem to have been a horrid old bitch."

 **c)**

Belle's family are the noisiest bunch of people Harry's ever encountered.

Maybe it wouldn't be so striking if they weren't all talking in different languages, but her mother and aunts are laughing together in French, her cousins are playing cards and arguing in what might be Latin, because it sounds like spells, and her grandparents are dancing over on the other side of the fireplace and talking quietly to one another in - where did Belle say her grandfather was from? Scandinavian something or other.

Her uncles, at least, are sitting with Tonks and her father, and they're speaking English. Harry decides they should be safe enough to sit with, since the Weasleys are all a bit glum about Percy, and Belle's been in the most suspicious mood Harry's ever seen since they arrived without Hermione in tow.

"Wotcher," Tonks says, her eyes narrowed across the chessboard at the smaller of Belle's uncles - Amand, the one who isn't her mother's brother. "Don't say a word, Harry, I've got him right where I want him."

"Bah!" Amand says, winking up at Harry. "She 'as no idea what she is doing."

"She is better than me," the other uncle, Anatole, says. Harry's seen him half a dozen times before, but this is the first time he hasn't been wearing all black-and-white - Belle's convinced as many people as possible into hideously ugly jumpers, and Anatole's is blue and red, with little flashing lights on it. It makes him a good deal less intimidating than he was in Hogsmeade, before Christmas. "But then, I am bad at chess. Bellona has been able to triumph over me since she was a little baby."

Ted Tonks is a plain little man with the friendliest smile Harry's ever seen, and he nods very slightly to the glass of wine in Anatole's hand.

"Sit here with me," he says, patting the end of the couch. "Dromeda'll be back from wherever she's gone soon, and she'll have to make friends if you're sitting with me. Good lad."

Harry has a vague idea that this might be what it's like to have a grandfather, and reckons he could probably do worse than Ted Tonks.

Belle comes thundering down the stairs with the oldest of her cousins - Jean? No, Jeanne - and Andromeda in tow, trailed by a smell of burning paper.

"We stripped the walls in the horrible room," she says cheerfully when her mother looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "Dromeda told us 'oo they were as we burned them away."

The other man who looks identical to Belle's grandfather sweeps her away to dance alongside her grandparents, and soon all of Belle's family are dancing.

"Oh, Arthur," Mrs. Weasley says, looking teary but better than she had before. "Do you remember dancing to this?"

"I don't see why we shouldn't dance to it again," Mr. Weasley says cheerfully, and they're followed onto the sudden dancefloor by Andromeda and Ted, and then Tonks and one of the twins, and then Blaise Zabini's mother and the other twin - George, now Harry can get a look at him.

Harry slips away to the kitchen. The Yule Ball put a fear of dancing in him that he hasn't quite gotten over.

Kreacher is grumbling away under the sink, and Harry settles in by the fire with a bottle of Butterbeer. It isn't often that he gets time alone, so he makes himself comfortable. It's easy enough to ignore Kreacher, and the kitchen still smells of baking and roast meat - Belle and her cousin put on a feast the house elves would be proud of, and they'd both beamed when even Mrs. Weasley had to admit that it was brilliant.

Harry's never really sat in a kitchen without feeling like he should be doing something, but Belle's grandmother had declared that the younger two cousins would be doing the washing up, and Belle and Jeanne seem to be the tidiest cooks he's ever seen, because the place already seems clean and tidy. The fire is still burning, crackling quietly every so often, and it's the most at ease Harry has been in a long time.

Especially because he doesn't have to deal with Ron and Hermione, just for a few minutes.

He's so comfortable that he dozes off a little, and he wakes up to find that he's no longer alone in the kitchen. There's a set of Slytherin Quidditch robes thrown over the chair at the end of the table, and the quiet murmur of Belle's lilting accent is just audible over the fire.

He listens a little closer.

"There is no one else left who would know him as well as you, Kreacher," she's saying. "The only one left who can tell me about my uncle. Will you, Kreacher? Please? I know you don't like me because of what my mother is, but I am a Black as well as a de Poitiers. I would like to know what that means."

She pulls herself up with one hand on the back of the chair, the silver of all her rings and her pale fingers very bright against the green of the Quidditch robes, and she smiles at Harry when she sees that he's awake.

"Even if you will not speak to me, Kreacher," she says, "I would like you to sort these robes, please - they were my uncle's, and I would have them cleaned and stored as you see fit."

Belle comes to sit beside Harry, taking his mostly-full bottle of Butterbeer from his hand and sipping from it.

Kreacher pulls the robes from the chair and disappears - out of the kitchen, because his grumbling goes with him.

"I did not mean to wake you," Belle says. "I am sorry, 'Arry."

"I didn't mean to intrude," he says. "Where did you find those robes?"

"Would you believe that they've been in a trunk in our changing rooms since my uncle was at school?" she says, shaking her head. "I outgrew mine, and they fit. It's been horrible, having to wear them."

She passes back the bottle of Butterbeer. He takes a sip.

"I know that I have been… Unkind, in all of this," she says, folding her hands together before her. She has very long, thin fingers, and she wears a lot of heavy silver rings - one or two Harry recognises as Sirius', but the rest look like antiques. He's never really noticed them before now, but then, he thinks that he and Belle have never been alone like this for him to notice something like that before. "I am sorry for that. I did not intend it."

"I've not been as nice as I could have been," he admits. Even now, that horrible fury that made him wreck Dumbledore's office turns his stomach when he thinks about Sirius, and his throat feels tight with it. "I should have- I should have written, Belle. I know Hermione did, and Ron said he did as well."

"I didn't even reply to Blaise's letters over the summer," she confesses. "I barely did anything. Jeanne was all that kept me going, truthfully. We were never close growing up, but I cannot imagine being without her now. Isn't that strange?"

He suspects she feels the same way about having lost Sirius, because that's just how Harry feels. Sirius had been one of the best, most unexpected parts of being a wizard, and now that he's gone, well. Harry doesn't know what he feels, but it's horrible.

He passes the bottle back to Belle. She raises it in a toast before taking a sip.

"I know that Papa was not only mine," she says. "It is only that- well, everyone seemed to forget that he was mine at all, sometimes. Everyone here in England, I mean. Remus and Dora and Dromeda, they have done their best, but it is still- do you know how I found out about Papa's death?"

He shakes his head. He assumed McGonagall told her, but has a sinking feeling that that was a stupid thing to do.

"Professor Snape threw me into a classroom to protect me from Professor Umbridge and her gang," she says. "I was there all night - I think I had more plumage than hair by morning, when he came to let me out. He told me that all my friends were fine, but that Papa had- that he was-"

She hiccups, and then she's crying. Harry's never known what to do when a girl cries, but he's crying a little bit as well so it isn't as bad this time. He throws his arm over Belle's shoulders and pulls her close, patting her arm as comfortingly as he can.

"I'm all that's left of him," she says, sniffling. "He couldn't leave a legacy, thanks to Pettigrew, so there's just me. And I don't know what to do with it! I don't know who I'm supposed to be, here in England!"

"I don't really know either," Harry offers. "I felt like a right prat when Miss Shacklebolt told me I owned Sleakeazy. First I ever heard of it was when Hermione used it for the Yule Ball."

Belle starts to laugh then, and it's a little watery, but it's genuine.

"Shall we be friends, then?" she asks, pressing the bottle back into his hand. "It's what Papa would have wanted."

"It is," Harry agrees. "And I think we're doing alright, but maybe we can talk a little more often."

"You'll have to tell me all your favourite sweets," Belle says, smiling up at him from under her eyelashes. "Because once Maman and Anatole find out that we have made up, they'll start sending special orders for you, just like they do for everyone else."

"I think I'll survive," he says, because even the sweets he doesn't like out of Belle's magical basket of food are delicious.

* * *

Belle's mother takes Harry aside when everyone is saying their goodbyes that night, a paper hat askew on her head. Madam de Poitiers - Madam Juno, since all of them answer to Madam de Poitiers - is very beautiful, but she isn't as intimidating as she should be, just because he can see an awful lot of Belle in her face.

"So, Monsieur Potter," she says, tipping his chin up so he's looking her in the eye. She and both of Belle's aunts have spent the day walking around in spindly high heels as if they were slippers, and even if they weren't already tall women they'd be towering over everyone except maybe Ron and the twins. "You spoke with my Bellona."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, for want of anything else. "In the kitchen," he adds, just to fill in a little of the silence he's afraid she might let drag on.

"Good boy," she says, surprising him. "Sirius would not have been so very fond of you if you were as stupid as you've seemed so far this year."

She kisses him first on his right cheek and then on the left, and Harry ponders this in great confusion even as he spins back to the Burrow via Floo. He thinks Belle's mother just gave him her blessing, but he isn't sure what for.

 **III.**

The morning after Christmas involves a great deal of the adults complaining, and Belle has no pity for them - Jeanne and the twins set themselves to cleaning the sitting room, cheerfully making as much noise as they can.

Belle, armed only with a mercifully well Remus, decides to tackle her father's bedroom.

"I've never been in here," she admits. "Papa was very… Private."

"Always," Remus agrees. His French accent is somehow even worse than Harry's, but he's trying very sincerely. Even so, he doesn't miss the way her nose wrinkles, and so he switches back to English. "And disorganised - that's why I appointed myself your godfather. You needed at least one sensible grown up to handle Sirius' side of things."

"I did wonder," she says, unlocking Papa's door, "how you ended up as my godfather, since Papa did not know about me when I was born."

"James would have been, if he had known," Remus says, and does not sound disappointed by that. "They were closer than brothers."

Her father's room smells musty, and the curtains are drawn. Belle does her best not to look around until she's thrown the curtains back and opened the window, and when she does-

"Why are there so many ladies in underwear?" she asks. "No, do not answer. I would rather not know."

Remus sniggers, but he takes down the posters of the nearly-naked women. Then he takes down the faded Quidditch posters, then the Muggle photographs of motorbikes. Once Belle has stripped the bed, he lays them in neat stacks on the bare mattress, and for a sickly moment, this feels like another funeral.

Belle looks to the moving photos.

Most are of her father as a young man. The first is a stiff, formal portrait with a boy who looks enough like Belle to startle her, and with the old bitch in the portrait in the hallway, and a severe looking man who can only be Belle's grandfather. She has seen portraits and photographs of herself as a little girl, and it is disquieting to see so much of her own face in her dead uncle's. Next there is another portrait, this just of Papa and his brother on what must be Uncle Regulus' first day at Hogwarts. Papa's tie is red-and-gold, the trim on his robes scarlet, but Uncle Regulus' are all plain black, and he looks hardly older than he did in the other portrait.

"Did you have to change into your robes before you got on the train for school?" she asks, breaking into whatever Remus is laughing about on the other side of the room.

"Nah," he says. "A lot of the Purebloods did, though - I think it was to mark themselves apart from the likes of me."

The photographs from school make Belle's heart twist - Papa carrying a boy who simply must be Harry's father across his shoulder, Papa with a boy who can only be Remus pulling faces behind him, Papa with another boy who must, therefore, be Peter Pettigrew, sitting together by the fire in what she assumes to be the Gryffindor common room.

She has photos of herself and Blaise and Daphne that are similar. Her favourite is of Blaise hanging upside-down over a low branch of her favourite tree, with Daphne curled elegantly into a neat little notch in the trunk. Bellona herself is sitting higher up, above Blaise, bending down so that she can be seen through the leaves. Theo Nott took it, back before he remembered what his father expected of him.

She pulls a ribbon from her pocket to tie around all the photos of Papa at school. There are some with a girl with long red hair who she suspects to be Harry's maman, based on those sharp green eyes, and even one with a pink-faced boy who is Neville Longbottom's papa. Belle wonders if she might give that one to Neville, and decides to ask Hermione if that would be appropriate - she likes Neville, and thinks that he likes her as well, but she does not know if they are friends.

"Remus?"

"Hmm?"

"What happened to all of these people?"

Because of all the people in Papa's school photos, Belle has met only Remus. That terrifies her, in the shadow of Dolores Umbridge's reign at Hogwarts, with the English War beckoning so closely again, because what is she to do if she loses any of her few friends?

Remus looks very tired when he looks her in the eye, and she is the one to look away. She knows what happened - all the gaps and missing pieces in the stories she heard while part of Dumbledore's Army, from Susan Bones and Neville Longbottom and all the rest, they are because of the war. Because of people like her uncle, her grandparents, the madwoman whose face she shares.

"Oh," she says, and they move on.

Her father has more photos of Remus and of James and Lily Potter and of Peter Pettigrew, tucked into boxes and hidden between socks in his drawers, and even in the pocket of a long-unworn set of dress robes. Everywhere they look, there are more photographs and letters, and even a pair of tiny painted miniatures of himself and Uncle Regulus.

"Here, Belle," Remus says, waving a stack of photos tied with a bright red ribbon at her - a dusty ribbon, but bright despite its age under the dust. "You might like this."

More photos, but this time… Why, that is Maman!

Belle has never truly seen it before, but she really does look as much like Maman as she did like Papa. That comforts her very much, in this house with so many echoes of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Maman always spoke well of Papa, even when he was still in Azkaban, before Belle went to Hogwarts, and Papa… Well, Belle thought that perhaps Papa was still a little in love with Maman, but even the softness that flourished between them after their reunion is nothing compared with these photos.

"They loved one another," Remus says, very gently. "We all laughed when Sirius said he'd started going out with a French girl, because everyone else he'd ever introduced to us had been awful - he had terrible taste, until he met your mum."

"She once told me the same thing," Belle says, wishing she didn't sound quite so close to tears. "She said she was the making of him, until she came home to Valence."

"She was," Remus agrees, surprising her. "Don't get me wrong, Sirius was always going to be… Impressive, but your mum made him do things he never expected of himself, I think. She made him cut his hair after James and Lily's wedding, if nothing else. Didn't think anything could make him do that, but Juno did."

There are thirty photographs or more of just Maman and Papa in this bundle, and there is another bundle in Remus' hand - letters! Letters in Maman's handwriting!

"These I'm going to give to your mother first," Remus says, flushing pink when Belle reaches for them. "So she can, ah, censor them."

Oh!

"There's still more," Belle says, diving away for the photos pinned above Papa's bed - Harry's parents' wedding day, Harry and his parents, Harry on a toy broom-

And Belle. Photos of her as a baby, as a little girl, the day she left for Hogwarts. Photos of her and Blaise eating ice-cream in Monsieur Fortescue's, of them walking arm-in-arm through St. Petersburg, of them sitting in the sunshine in Amand's garden in Rennes. Photos of her and Maman in the gardens in Valence, or sitting by the river in Taivolkovski, or of Maman doing Belle's hair in front of Grand-mère's dressing table.

Photos of Belle and Papa, taken last Christmas. Belle is asleep in one of them, curled against Papa's side with his arm over her shoulders. She has never seen that one before.

"Come on," Remus says, tugging on her elbow. "I think we've done enough for one morning, don't you?"

* * *

Maman weeps when Belle shows her the photos. Belle has known that Maman has been grieving for Papa since the summer, but this is the first time she's seen it.

It makes her own burden feel a little lighter, to share it.

"I wish I could take it back," she says, words choking between sobs. "Oh, chouette, I wish- I was so frightened when his brother disappeared, and I knew that we would be such targets because of what I am. I couldn't! I could not take that risk!"

Grand-mère is frowning at Maman's shoulder, her jaw set and her eyes hard, and Belle wonders if this explains it all - that it was not her being half-human that caused them all to hold her in such low regard compared with Jeanne, but that she was the reason Maman walked away from someone she loved.

It is easier for Ukki and Aleksi to love her as they always have. Taivolkovski is not central to all Veela in western Europe as Valence is, and there is no great and glorious history behind that side of the family, not as there is shadowing over the de Poitiers - from La Belle Diane herself, down through fair Louise Borgia, who had the blood by her father's mother, all the way to proud, haughty Europa, with her three daughters and three full-blooded granddaughters.

Belle was jealous of that legacy, of the weight of it, when she was a girl. Now she is glad not to bear it, even if having no true share of it means she will always stand a little on the outside of her family, just as Anatole does.

That maybe explains it, but it does not excuse it. Belle has come too far, thanks to Blaise and Daphne and their refusal to ever bow to Grand-mère's expectation of disdain, and she will not be cowed again. Not even by Maman's grief.

"We never made plans," Maman says, leaning into Grand-mère's touch. "It was always so exciting, to say that it was too dangerous to plan for the future, but then there was you, and I had no choice but to think ahead, and Sirius was too headstrong and too foolhardy-"

"Enough, Juno," Anatole says, his hands on Belle's shoulders. "Don't you think this is hard enough for Bellona?"

"It is hard for your sister as well, Anatole," Grand-mère says warningly, but Anatole, alone of her children, fails to heed her warnings. It is that talent that allowed him to be Belle's champion, all those years in Valence.

It has not escaped her that he moved to Rennes as soon as she left for school. She just doesn't know how to thank him for it.

"Belle has little enough of her father without you bad-mouthing him," Anatole scolds Maman, and Belle cannot help but cover his hands with her own. "Of all the things Juno, why must you be selfish about this? Bad enough you behaved as you did when she was small, but this! If you love her at all, surely you can see that she deserves better?"

"How dare you-"

Aleksi tugs Belle out of the way as Maman and Anatole begin to fight - Grand-mère, of course, sides with Maman, and the aunts as well, and Ukki comes to stand with his hand on Anatole's back. It always ends this way, when there is a row, and Belle understands better than she might like.

Anatole came home to Valence when Belle was a little girl, so small she hardly remembers being without him. He was not a de Poitiers of Valence until he forced himself into Grand-mère's home as a permanent fixture - he lived in Taivolkovski, was raised by Ukki, grew up in Aleksi's kitchen.. Male Veela are prized for their beauty, true, but they are also held a little apart for not being normal. Anatole alone knows what it is to be on the edge of Grand-mère's heart, and that is why Belle cannot allow him to keep fighting for her.

Belle understands Anatole. She understands why he and Ukki always stand with her. But she understands Grand-mère as well, and knows why having a half-human granddaughter who looked more human than Veela even as a little girl has always been so difficult for her.

Anatole has always been angry for her, so she did not have to be. He has always been angry for her because he has never allowed himself to be angry for his own sake. She cannot allow that to continue.

"Anatole," she says, sliding between him and Maman, "Anatole, wait, please wait."

He stops entirely, pink-faced and hawk-eyed and more dangerous than he has ever seemed.

"I am sorry, ma petite," he says, ducking down to kiss her brow. "Forgive me - I should not have raised my voice so."

"Maman is allowed to mourn as well, Anatole," she says. "I have spent all year being angry that others seemed to be laying claim to my grief - it would not be fair of me to do the same now. It would not be permissible. Please?"

He sighs.

"Very well. I will finish my… discussion with your mother some other day."

He retreats then, sitting by the fire with Amand on the arm of his chair, and Belle takes a deep breath before turning to Maman.

Grand-mère still looks mutinous, but Leto and Metis look only worried. Maman, of course, is still crying.

"I know what kind of man he was, Maman," Belle says. "I understand why you fled. But perhaps… Not today?"

"Not at Christmas, Juno," Leto says, linking her arm through Maman's. "And not this soon, hmm?"

Metis peels off to whisper furiously at Anatole, who whispers furiously back. Of course it is Grand-mère's general who seeks to punish Anatole, and of course it is Leto who takes Belle by the hand and draws her close to Maman.

The twins are so very much like their mother. Increasingly, as she comes to know them, Belle is seeing that the same is true of Jeanne and Leto.

Maman cries into Belle's hair. Belle cries onto Maman's shoulder. They still have a great deal of talking to do, more than Belle realised, but not today. Today they will halt an argument before it can truly begin, and they will mourn together. That will do for now.

Belle suspects that if Anatole loved her even a hair less, he would fight with Metis and Grand-mère now. He loves her more than she knows, though, and so instead he strokes her hair and Maman's, and that is enough of an apology to be getting on with.


	8. Sixth Year - Second Term

**I.**

The first meeting of Daphne's Duelling Club is on the first Wednesday evening back after Christmas. Because all four heads of house have sanctioned it but Professor Dumbledore has not, for some reason, they cannot hold it in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall has given them permission to use her NEWT classroom, since it's one of the biggest rooms in the school, and Professor Sprout has given them free rein to use the area around the greenhouses, once the weather picks up.

"Let's see," Blaise says, settling the last of the benches onto the stack, and tapping the ropes on the floor with his wand. They snake their way around the benches, bright pink against the dark wood until the magic settles, and then the room is quiet. "What else does Daph need?"

"Members for her club," Belle says, perhaps a little more meanly than she should. "Oh, I only wish I could keep away anyone with ill intentions. I want so badly for this to go well for Daphne."

"It will. You'll see."

Daphne, of course, is quite popular outside of Slytherin, or even just outside of their own year within Slytherin. First through the door are Flora Carrow and Roman Urquhart and some of their friends, looking unflustered and laconic as only the rich and aloof can. Flora's had her hair chopped up to her ears over the holidays, and somehow, it suits her. It really should not.

Behind them is a cluster of little ones - first and second years in green ties and silver hair clips, huddling together and whispering nervously. There's a blue tie in there as well, and a bright yellow ribbon in dark hair, and Belle thinks that Daphne might have been onto something when she came up with this plan.

They come in stops and starts - a brace of giggly Ravenclaws led by Padma Patil, with her achingly lovely hair and her clever, watchful eyes, who Belle has gotten along well enough with since asking Fleur to send a pair of nice, sensible Beauxbatons boys to keep the Patils company in Harry and Ron's absence at the Yule Ball. They exchange almost-friendly nods of acknowledgement, and the tallest of the boys with her also nods at Blaise.

"My father and Anthony's did a great deal of business together," Blaise says quietly. "We still see one another socially from time to time because of it."

It is difficult for Blaise to speak about his father, who died when Blaise was only three and who stands half-remembered in Blaise's mind. Easier for him to speak of his mother's seventh and most recent husband, because with him came Blaise's beloved stepsisters, Anna and Inka. Belle wonders if that is why it has been so much easier to speak with him of Papa than with Daphne, who has always had both of her parents.

More interested parties arrive. Hufflepuffs, led by booming Ernie Macmillan and sharp-tongued Susan Bones, and another batch of Ravenclaws, these led by Luna Lovegood. More Slytherins, fifth and sixth years with a nervous, defiant Tracey Davis at their head, and then more Hufflepuffs that Belle doesn't know.

By the time Hermione arrives, promising that Ron and Harry are not far behind her, the room is a little over half full. Hermione is the only Gryffindor to have arrived so far, which is unsurprising if disappointing.

"I thought at least the Frobisher girl would come," Blaise murmurs. "She sponsored the damn club with Daph, it's the least she ought to do."

But they've spoken too soon, for Daphne is chased into the room by a herd of typically rowdy Gryffindors - all the rest of their own year, and a dozen or more from the years below, and yes, there's Vicky Frobisher and two others Belle assumes must be seventh years.

"Seems Potter underestimated how popular his little gang might have been, last year," Daphne says, breezing over to kiss Belle and Blaise on the cheeks. "We'll be very well behaved the first few weeks, to see if we can't turn Professor Dumbledore's head, and after that the weather should've picked up enough that we can go outside and go mad."

"Any particular plans, Professor Greengrass?" Blaise asks, passing a book from Belle to Daphne and a bag from Daphne to Belle - a bag spelled to hold a great many more biscuits than it otherwise could, by the whiff of ginger and sugar Belle gets when it opens very slightly. "Shall we ask Potter to show off his Disarming Charm, or perhaps whatever jolly little thing he did during the last Duelling Club, with the snake?"

"Leave Harry alone," Belle scolds mildly. "Disarming might be a good place to start, though, Daph - I know I'm a little wary of trying anything more exciting on the little ones."

"Oh, no," Daphne says. "Tonight isn't for spellwork - tonight is for me to lay down the ground rules all the teachers made me agree to, and a few little suggestions Professor Slughorn made."

"Good old Slug," Blaise says, so sincerely that he is obviously astonished at Daphne listening to a word from the old fart. "Has he told you to create alliances?"

"Yes, actually," Daphne says, and then she goes to stand at Professor McGonagall's blackboard and reveals the notes she's already made with a sharp tap of her wand.

Belle has never considered Daphne to be particularly intimidating before. Daphne is beautiful, the most beautiful girl Belle knows aside, perhaps, from Jeanne, and she is a remarkably talented witch - almost as good as Hermione, if a little quieter about it. She's kind and she's gentle and she's very, very forgiving, which Belle knows better than she'd like to, but she's never really considered what Daphne is like when she's away from Belle herself and Blaise.

When Daphne stands at the front of the classroom, everyone looks - and more importantly, when Daphne speaks, everyone listens.

* * *

"I think that went quite well," Ron says, adding an extra sugar to Hermione's tea without needing to be asked. "You weren't half bad, Greengrass."

"Yes, thank you, Weasley." Daphne's only being a little sardonic, which means she's really warmed up to Ron. "I agree, it could have gone much worse."

"Do you think everyone will agree to choosing a partner from a different house?" Hermione asks in that fretful way of hers. "I'm not sure who I ought to choose-"

"Well," comes a pompous voice from behind Belle. "It won't be de Poitiers."

Ernie Macmillan has an awful lot of chin and not much nose, and all Belle really knows of him is that his pomposity is inborn, and that he's very protective of the little Hufflepuffs. She remembers Daphne mentioning something about an earldom, and that when she and Blaise arrived in their Lelong robes, he demanded to know why he couldn't wear a kilt with his uniform.

"Macmillan," she says, spinning to face him. "Are you issuing me with a challenge?"

"If you're witch enough to accept it," he says cheerfully, immediately flushing pink when he realises what he's said. "Oh, bugger, didn't mean it like that, de Poitiers-"

"Call me Belle," she says, "and I shall call you Ernie when I'm helping you up from the floor every week. Fair?"

They shake on it, and Belle has her dueling partner. A joy in one sense, because she hadn't at all expected to be approached by anyone beyond Harry's friends, and a shame, too, because she'd been halfway hoping for Hermione or for Neville Longbottom.

"Ernie's not the worst," Harry says, returning from his very intense conversation with Blaise, looking a little winded. "He's rubbish at Shield Charms though, so don't go too hard on him."

* * *

"Belle?"

Daphne has put one of her elegant Silencing Charms on the curtains of Belle's fine bed, and they are curled together, cut off from their housemates. They've done this less often than they ought to have done, Belle thinks, but she has so little trust to give that she hadn't dared share secrets with Daphne at first.

She regrets that now. Daphne has always deserved her trust - Belle was just too wary to see it.

"Hmm?"

"Why in the world did you agree to be Macmillan's partner? I thought you'd partner with Potter."

"Harry needs to make more friends even more badly than I do," Belle says, shrugging and completely ignoring the blush rising in her cheeks She could have said no to Ernie Macmillan and partnered with Ron or Hermione, but she didn't. No one has ever sought her out so directly before, and that in itself was reason enough to say yes to Ernie. It might be nice to make a new friend. One that's just hers. That's the thing she wants most out of Daphne's club - to find people who can be her friends beyond Daph and Blaise and Harry and Hermione and Ron.

"And anyway - it won't do him any favours if he's seen consorting with me any more than he already does. He has enough to handle without having to shoulder some of my unlucky aura."

"I'm going to kill Pansy for that one," Daph says, valiantly not noticing how pink Belle has become. Instead, she rolls up onto her knees so she can start braiding her hair. "What a horrible rumour to spread!"

"Well, better people avoid any feathers I drop than they follow me around trying to collect them for good luck," Belle points out, spreading herself out in a long, slow stretch. "I think I'm more feathery this year than I was last, somehow, and I know there were a few enterprising Ravenclaws who used chase my shadows in search of feathers. I think they were using them in experimental potions."

"But that's horrible! And illegal, as far as I know."

Belle shrugs again. She's long become used to those outside her small social sphere not seeing her as entirely human - which she isn't, of course she is not, but it means something different to be half-Veela among her friends and family than it means to be half-witch among everyone else.

"I really will kill Pansy, one of these days," Daphne says, holding out a hand for Belle's hairbrush. It's handed over reluctantly, and Belle heaves herself up to sit with her back to Daph for braiding purposes. "She keeps… needling. I think it's mostly just that she's jealous that Blaise and I are in Professor Slughorn's good books and she isn't, but there's something else. Astoria's started hanging around them, even though they're older than her, and I don't dare imagine what kind of nasty little things she's telling Pansy."

"Let me kill her," Belle offers. "It's what people would expect, and I think I would enjoy it more."

"Oh, Belle," Daphne sighs, wrapping her arms around Belle's shoulders as Anatole often does. "Practice fighting Ernie Macmillan, and then we'll see about sending you up against Pansy."

 **II.**

"Miss de Poitiers? A word?"

Professor McGonagall is watching Belle over her glasses, which generally means trouble. Harry gives her an encouraging thumbs-up as he passes, which McGonagall watches with withering disapproval.

"Have I done something wrong, Professor?"

"Oh, no, of course not. I wanted to talk about your future, de Poitiers."

"You can use Black, Professor. If it's more convenient for you."

This generous offer has nothing to do with how Professor McGonagall's thick Scottish accent strangles Belle's last name.

"If you'd prefer, Black. Come, sit here."

Belle sits in the suggested chair, nearest the professor's desk.

"I hear cursebreaking is where you're headed," she says, folding her arms and once again looking over her glasses. "May I ask why?"

"My family are bankers, Professor," Belle says, a little wrong-footed by this. "Having an in-house cursebreaker can only be a good thing."

"And do you actually wish to return to France, Black? After you've finished in Hogwarts?"

Belle settles narrowed eyes on McGonagall, and is relieved when they aren't immediately called out as a mark of disrespect.

"Has Remus written to you?" she asks. "He keeps telling me I have options. "

"Remus has written to me about you, yes," McGonagall says, and Belle thinks she might even be smiling - although it could just as easily be a trick of the light. "But even if he hadn't, I'd have wanted to speak to you. You're the finest student to come through my classroom in I can't say how long, Black. There are options for witches as singularly gifted in Transfiguration as you are."

McGonagall gestures to the high, vaulted ceilings above them, the immaculately dust-free blackboard behind her, and finally to the heavy, solid, comfortable desk on the edge of which she is perched.

"This might be one of them," she says. "Something to consider."

She waves Belle away with a nod, but calls to her when she's at the door.

"And Black - I'm sorry. For your father. Sirius was a good man."

Belle might have been less surprised had McGonagall slapped her.

"Oh," she says. "Thank you, Professor."

Another wave and nod of dismissal and she's gone, confused over the entirety of it, and late for Potions to boot.

* * *

 _Belle-_

 _Before you set me on fire, think about it. Minerva's very rarely complimentary to anyone, so of course she meant what she said. I know you think she's never liked you, but that's just her face. She's very fond of me and I don't think I've ever seen her smile._

 _She's right about this, though. I know you really are interested in cursebreaking, but that isn't your only choice. You're only sixteen, and if you don't mind me saying, you're filthy rich - you don't have to decide before you leave school. Your mother will support you no matter what you decide, and I will as well, but no one minds if you don't make that decision right away._

 _You really should think about what Minerva said, Belle. I don't know of anyone else she's ever said something so nice to._

 _With love,_

 _Remus._

 **III.**

"I think you'd be ruddy good at it, is what I think!" Ernie booms, dodging a wayward splash of jinx while they pause for a drink. They're in one of the trophy halls this week, and the echo off all the silverwear is ear-melting, so for once, it's only Belle who can hear Ernie's… Ernie-ness. "Why, you're nowhere near as scary as you think you are, and you really do have a knack for it. How's your Charms?"

"Not as good as my Transfiguration."

"Well, there you have it," Ernie says. "I've a cousin - a second cousin, I think, being specific - who's a cursebreaker for the Greek Ministry. She says it's all charmwork and runes, so play to your strengths, girl!"

"I'm very good at Ancient Runes, thank you very much."

"Oh, I know you speak twenty languages and write six more," he says, waving a dismissive hand with a disarming smile. Ernie is always smiling, but Belle thinks that perhaps his smile is a little warmer for her than it is for anyone else. She's never had someone wink at her quite so much, either. "But do you enjoy that, or are you just good at it? I'm a damned fine Herbologist, but it bores me to tears. Couldn't stand to meddle in a greenhouse for the rest of my days, so I'm aiming for something in public relations."

"Oh!" Belle says, genuinely surprised, although she likely shouldn't be. "I think you'd be very good at that, actually."

"Meaning I'm enormously loud and over-confident," he agrees cheerfully. "Those are strengths of mine that I do enjoy. I'm very good with people, once the shock wears off, and I'm the most stubborn bugger I know. You are very good at Transfiguration, and given how damnably smug you get when your spells work first time, every time, I dare say you enjoy it."

"Well, I suppose I do."

"There, you see! McGonagall's a tough old bird, but she knows what she's about. From what I've heard, it's the teachers who choose their successors anyway, so might be that she's appointing her heir early, before some of the private spellworkers can snap you up."

"Do you know, Ernie Macmillan," Belle says, "you talk an awful lot more sense than I would ever have thought, before we partnered for this."

His laugh is even louder than his speaking voice, bright and careless, as though it does not matter who hears him.

"I had no intention whatsoever of charming you when I asked if you wanted to partner up," he says, confident in that direct way of his. "I had every intention of flirting, though."

"Mr. Macmillan!"

"Miss de Poitiers."

"What an absolute scoundrel you are," she scolds, but she can't stop smiling. "No one has ever flirted with me before!"

"You're just very unobservant, is the problem," Ernie says. "Every chap in our year has tried - and half of the poor fools on either side of us, for that matter. You're very pretty, you know. And people like that you don't get on with Parkinson. She's not very well liked."

"Have you flirted with me before, Ernie?"

"Shamelessly," he says. "But I stepped up my campaign this term. Thought it was about time."

He bids her farewell for the evening before she can respond to that, to go fuss over a third-year Hufflepuff, who's spouting a spectacular nosebleed and who is accompanied by a panicked looking Gryffindor second year.

Belle decides to let Blaise and Daphne finish up at their own pace, and sets off to wander down the hall. Most of the trophies in here are ancient things, polished only because students in detention must do something, and she's not really paying attention when something catches her eye.

Black. Betelgeuse, of all the unfortunate first names, with the year worn so smooth Belle can't quite read it. It's an award for Charms, because what else would it be after that chat with Ernie? Belle's always been good, but not exceptional at Charms, and she wonders what Papa was like. Perhaps she could ask Professor Flitwick.

How many Blacks would she find, if she poked through all the cups and shields and medals in the trophy halls of Hogwarts? There are Orders of Merlin by the fistful in Grimmauld Place, bought with illicit Galleons and awarded, sometimes, less for an open hand than a closed fist. They mean nothing. It may well be that these awards mean just as little, but it is interesting nonetheless to see something of Papa's family.

She knows nothing. She would like to know something.

"There are dozens of them, you know," comes an unfamiliar voice. "All over the school. We're a fecund and a felicitous bunch, dear girl."

There is a portrait of a pair of witches calmly mixing up what looks awfully like a love potion between two trophy cases, one which Belle noticed but did not much mind when she was helping Daph set up for this evening. She minded enough to know that the narrow-faced, narrow-eyed man in the ugly hat had not been there an hour and a half ago.

"There we go," he says, smiling a mean little smile that reminds her of someone - the pinch-lipped hello that is all she has ever received from Draco's maman, perhaps? "Recognise me, do you?"

"You've always been rude enough to ignore me," Belle says, folding her arms and scowling as fiercely as she knows how. "Can't you shut my grandmother up? She'd listen to you."

"So you do know who I am!" he says, sounding delighted. "Good girl, good girl - is that any way to speak to the head of the family?"

"I don't know, is it?"

He eyes her cautiously for a moment.

"Sharp as a tack, I see," he says at last. "Your father was just the same. Yes, I suppose you might claim to be head of the family, I suppose you might. Even if you are a bastard."

"Only by your fool laws," she points out. "And I have a very polite vampire in Zurich who is only too happy to, ah, poke holes in the English legal system."

"And yet for all your claims over the family, you don't even use our name," he says. "You forget where else I have portraits, my girl - I hear all kinds of useful things in dear Albus' office."

Belle cannot quite restrain the pfuit of disdain Professor Dumbledore's mention brings forth, but Phineas Nigellus Black seems not to mind. In fact, he laughs.

"Yes, I agree," he says, shaking his head. "Although I suspect we dislike him for different reasons."

"I do use the family name sometimes," she says, shrugging. "But I was not allowed it for long enough that it feels strange, sometimes."

"Well," he says, "I suppose at least your first name is leaning in the right direction. Some would say a goddess is above a star, even."

"And what of a Muse?" she asks. "Urania was keeper of the stars, and wore them as her robe."

"A fine name as well," he concedes. "Bellona Urania. Better than one might expect of an outsider, particularly one so… exotic as your mother."

"Tell me," Belle says. "What is to stop me burning all your portraits to a crisp, old man? Because speak ill of my mother one more time and you will suffer for it."

"And me your poor great-great-great-grandfather, trying to connect you to your family history," he sighs. "Let me tell you, my girl - the more of that you show, the closer you are to your ancestors. Do you understand?"

"Not all of them can have been as… As my grandparents were. Or my uncle."

"Those who were not were not permitted to call themselves Black, dear."

"And so by that token, you have no cause to berate me for not using my father's name. After all - would my grandparents have laid claim to me as their grandchild?"

"Even without your unfortunate blend of heritages, no. Your father had been kicked out at sixteen, my girl."

She scowls a little harder. His smile turns a shade or two more sardonic.

"I think even with your disadvantages, you might be just what the family needs," he says. "There's change coming, whether for good or for ill, and I dare say you'll shake things up a little. More than Cygnus' girls ever will, and certainly more than your father or his brother ever had the spine for."

"You really are a horrible little man, aren't you?"

"I'm flattered, I truly am."

Belle feels very little a Black, truth be told, when compared to Phineas Nigellus. She has the eyes, she has the hair, she has the green on her robes, but she is much more her mother's daughter in so many things - and she is something apart from her parents altogether, too. She is only just coming to understand that.

"I'll be nearby, if you'd like to talk," he says, sweeping off his hat as he bows. "If ever you want to know more of the family history - I know all the nastiest stories."

Blaise comes to stand beside her as Phineas Nigellus takes his leave, looking more amused than Belle thinks is really fair.

"Family," he says. "There's no escaping them, is there?"

"No," Belle says, "but it does seem that teaching might be in my blood."

In the trophy cabinet nearest the portrait her great-great-great-grandfather invaded, there is another award to another Black - Prosperina, this one - for services to the school as Professor of History of Magic.

"Oh," Blaise says, following her gaze. "How horribly boring."

 **IV.**

Potions with Professor Slughorn is always, at the very least, interesting.

He has improved tenfold since the start of the year, spending at least two-thirds of each class teaching and only a third telling stories of his glorious past pupils, and Belle is relieved. Hermione alone seems to really dislike him as a teacher anymore, which is very strange indeed - Hermione is still working herself to the bone to come at the top of all her classes, and Professor Slughorn is never anything but beamingly complimentary of her.

Perhaps it's that the Slug Club was the trigger for whatever row Ron and Hermione were dealing with over Christmas. Who can say?

"Pass me the salamander skin, Blaise," Daphne says, glowing in a haze of pink-shimmering lilac steam. "Any updates on our funny problem, Belle?"

Across the room, the underlighting from his cauldron fire is making a corpse of Draco, leaving his always pale face frightening to behold.

"No," Belle says. "Nothing on that front, I'm afraid. I've had promises of further information once it becomes available, but nothing yet."

Andromeda has so little contact with her sisters that this is not surprising, but even Dora's strange and ephemeral network of contacts has turned up nothing - and given the rumours swirling around Draco since the start of the year, given the supposed reason he no longer rolls up his sleeves, Belle finds that to be particularly troubling.

"I've asked Mama to speak to her friends," Blaise says, stirring his cauldron with a dubious frown. It hasn't quite turned the perfect peony of Daphne's, nor does it have the shine of gold of Belle's, but it smells more appropriately of peach than either of theirs. "They tend to hear… Strange rumours. Perhaps it's a Russian thing. But even they have heard nothing, so I really don't know what we're to do."

"Plotting are we, Zabini?"

"Always, sir," Blaise says mildly. "What else are we to do?"

"Add a little more foxglove, for a start," Slughorn says, "and Miss Greengrass, I'd say a pinch of vervain might be no harm. Now, Miss de Poitiers…"

Professor Slughorn is always exactingly polite to Belle, demure in a way he is with no other pupils, and she can't help but resent it. Is it because of her titles? Is it because he is afraid of offending? She does not know, but at least whatever his discomfort of her is, it keeps him from being too chummy.

Ernie, whose potion must be absolutely neon by the way it's shining on his fair hair, winks at her from behind Professor Slughorn. Belle turns as peony as Daphne's potion and absolutely does not wink back.

"A shade more lacewing, my dear," Slughorn says, patting her shoulder. "That'll shift it enough for the smell, and if you try a tiny bit more heat, you'll get the colour."

Belle does both, and is rewarded with a potion as sweet-smelling as Blaise's and as prettily coloured as Daphne's.

"Back to plotting," Daph says as soon as Slughorn's moved out of earshot. "I think that the best thing we can do is to protect the little ones if this… whatever it is blows up in Draco's face."

Daphne means the first and second year Slytherins, but Belle is thinking of pretty Leandra from Ravenclaw, whose great-great-grandmother was a siren, and Toby in Hufflepuff whose eyes shine dryad-green in the sun, and yes, Isolde in Gryffindor who is Professor Sinistra's niece and has that same starry hair, and even Hector among their own third years, who does an admirable job of hiding the shimmer of bred-out gills behind his ears - Belle might not have noticed them, had she not spent so long trying to hide the feathers peeping through her hair.

And herself, of course. Belle knows that any secret mission that goes along with the brand on Draco's arm can only bode ill for her.

* * *

Ernie catches her by the elbow as they're leaving the classroom, grinning ear to ear.

"You must realise, de Poitiers," he says, "that your blushing like a China doll is rather belying your attempts to put me off."

"You're incorrigible, Macmillan."

"I'm persistent," he admits, and then falters. "If you'd rather, I'll back off, but-"

"Oh, no- I mean, I don't-"

His smile returns full-force.

"Marvelous," he says, lifting both her hands to kiss them and then disappearing off after Susan Bones.

"I'm going to slap him next time he does that," Belle says, watching him go.

"What, kiss you?" Blaise asks.

"Run away before I can shut him up, rather."

 **b)**

It's just Belle and Ron in the library, her lying along one of the narrow benches and Ron sitting at the end of the table with his feet on the arm of her bench, and that's rare enough that he decides this is as good a time as any.

"Saw you talking to Phineas Nigellus," he says, not quite looking up from his bloody Potions notes. "Nasty bugger."

"He's been hounding me since," Belle says, voice muffled by the weight of her Transfiguration book lying over her face. "Every time I'm walking anywhere alone, it's hello, dear girl, have you a moment? No! I have no moments! I am busy, always!"

"Ugh," Ron agrees. "Does that mean he likes you?"

She sits up suddenly, throwing aside her book and taking his out of his hands, frowning in a way that makes her look very like Sirius.

"I don't understand what he wants of me," she complains. "Everyone is always saying that my family legacy is important, that the Black legacy is a dark and terrible one, and here I am, everything my father's family hates - what am I to do? You're a pureblood, what do you think?"

"I think you aren't a pureblood," he says, "and that might not be a bad thing."

Because he has been thinking about it a bit. Belle's one of the richest people in England, so far as Ron can figure, but she's not like most of the other rich people. She's not as much of a Slytherin as she might be, all things considered, and it's not entirely because Malfoy and Pansy bully her.

"Explain."

"Well," he says, sitting up a bit straighter. "It's a bit like Hermione. She's a Muggleborn, which should mean she never does as well as someone like me would. But because she's Hermione, she's going to end up Minister someday. You could become like the Malfoys, or your grandparents, and just buy everything you want, but you won't. You don't like those people, and they don't like you, so maybe… I dunno. You could shake things up a bit, same as she will."

Belle looks at him the same way his mother does when he's done something unexpected. Usually, Mum follows it up with a sigh or by comparing him to the twins, but Belle smiles.

"You're very astute, Ron Weasley," she says. "I never noticed before, but you are."

"Thank you," he says, fairly sure she's done something even more unexpected than he did by paying him an out and out compliment. "Would you like some fudge? Mum sent some over yesterday."

Belle counters with little caramel biscuits, and they're halfway into their tins of sweets by the time any of the others get to the library.

* * *

Belle knocks, unsure if she will be welcome but determined to make the effort anyway.

Professor Hagrid answers the door with a pink apron over his black waistcoat and orange shirt. He is five times as big as Amand, but there is something about him that has always put Belle in mind of her little uncle - perhaps the softness of him, under all the bluster.

"Good evening, sir," she says brightly. "I was wondering if you had time for cake."

This cake is from Amand, as it happens, sweet and almondy and drizzled with syrupy caramel, something she's never had anywhere but in Amand's kitchen. Usually, he sends one for her birthday, but she requested one earlier this year - she cannot imagine anything better for making up for the neglect she has shown her budding friendship with Professor Hagrid.

"Well, I always have time for cake," he says, beaming as he steps back to let her in. "Don't mind Fang, I think he's having trouble with a tooth, have a seat, have a seat-"

She has a seat, setting her cake tin on his huge rough-hewn table, and feels a little like she's in Taivolkovski.

"I'm sorry I haven't been sooner," she says, taking the knife he offers with a smile. "But last year was, ah, unpleasant, and I have been unpleasant this year."

"Not a bit," he says easily, pouring two cups of tea from the massive pot hanging by the fire - he must keep a kettle constantly near the boil, for Belle has visited with him several times and is always greeted immediately with a cup of tea. "Two sugars, was it?"

"Just the one, please," she says, laying a huge wedge of Amand's cake on the pretty floral plate he laid out - something about the pattern is familiar, or the colour of the glaze, but Belle cannot quite put her finger on what. "But no, sir, I am sorry-"

"No sirs, thank you," he huffs, finally sitting down now that they both have their tea and their cake. "I've lost a dad as well, so don't you think I'm going to think ill of you for having a bad old time of it."

"Oh, but-"

"No buts, neither," he says firmly. "What's in this cake? Never had this one before - did you make this? It's lovely, I think it would be very nice after a bit of venison stew."

And it is as though she has not been absent from his little home for a year and a half.

* * *

 _Belley -_

 _Well, Dora's still a wet blanket, but you seem to have cheered up a bit. I'm glad of it. Ted says he spied you and the Potter boy having a bit of a private chat at Christmas, and I'm happy for that, too. It's always better to have friends than enemies, and that boy has greater need of friends than just about anyone I know._

 _I've asked what few of my "old friends" still talk to me about your odd little trouble, and while none of them will tell me what exactly is going on, I've pieced together what I can. Be very careful, Belley. There's trouble coming, and it's coming from within your house. Few things are more dangerous._

 _Rook to C3._

 _Love,_

 _Auntie Dromeda._

 **V.**

Belle's chessboard - the prettiest she's ever seen, in dove grey and rose pink marble, edged all with gold, a gift from Ukki and Grand-mère together and so particularly treasured - is set with Ron's much more aggressive pieces, scattered all over with sandwich crumbs as they all grouse their way through an unhappy Saturday of studying. Belle finally used Papa's instructions to enter the kitchen, and found the strangest house elf she's ever met there. Dobby introduced himself as Harry Potter's friend, and asked if she was Harry Potter's sister, and she supposed that she must be, based on the description he offered.

Dobby, who Harry later told her had once belonged to the Malfoys. Belle is repulsed at the notion of owning a house elf, even knowing what a hypocrite that makes her for Kreacher's sake. Her only consolation is that Kreacher would die instantly if she freed him, he's so completely obsessed with belonging to her family, but even that rings hollow as justification.

But Dobby, in all his hats and socks and his two neckties, had cheerfully produced a picnic basket of absolute delights, with the help of two other house elves who'd introduced themselves as Bepho and Lolle, and Belle had not been able to thank them enough. Her only fear is sneaking the basket back out past Madam Pince, once they've cleaned away all evidence of their feast.

"You're very good at this, Weasley," Blaise says thoughtfully, leaning over Belle's shoulder to watch their match in favour of his Arithmancy homework. "Didn't you win an award for chess?"

"House points," Ron says absently, nudging his most reluctant pawn in the back. "Helped us stop You-Know-Who back in first year. Great big set McGonagall set up - here, Belle, you should offer to play against her. She's scary on the other side of the chessboard, she really is."

"I think she's always a little scary," Belle says, taking out her dangling griffon claw earrings so she can think without them swinging against her neck. "But that is not a bad thing, I do not think."

"She's not as scary as she'd have you believe," Harry says, scratching his head with the tip of his wand. "She likes ginger newts, if you ever need to bribe her."

Hermione shushes them all around a mouthful of salmon and onion sandwich, waving a sheaf of notes in Harry's direction as a reprimand. She's really starting to show the strain of her workload, Belle thinks, although she'd never say as much aloud.

McGonagall might be scary, but Hermione is much scarier.

"Black? A word, if I may?"

Belle hasn't spoken more than half a dozen words altogether to Theo Nott since he stopped being their friend, but he's leaning against the nearest stack as though no time has passed at all.

"Of course, Theo," she says, dusting off her hands and her robes as she rises. "What can I help you with?"

"In private, perhaps?"

If Daphne were here, she'd shoo Theo away then and there. Blaise puts his hand on her arm as a caution, and she accepts it with a nod.

"Behind this shelf," she says. "No further. I know who you call friend these days, Theo."

He grimaces, but concedes with a stiff little bow. Once they are out of sight of the table, Belle stops and crosses her arms.

"Well?"

"You need to speak with Greengrass," he says flatly. "It's one thing to have… preferences like hers, but she can't flaunt them, and particularly not with the Bones girl. Rein her in, Black. I know what her family are like, and if Astoria gets word of this it won't go well for Daphne."

"Go away, Theo," Belle says, hiding her confusion under disdain. "You made it quite clear that we were no longer your concern-"

"This is serious, Bellona," Theo says, standing a little closer. "Daphne could be in danger if this goes badly - I had to choose between your friendship and my father, and I chose my father. That doesn't mean I wish ill on any of you. Please, Belle. Don't consider me in this at all, but at least speak to Daphne. Ask her to be a little more discreet, if she won't give it up altogether."

"I'll speak with her," Belle says. "But if I annoy her, I'm sending her to you, Theo."

"That's all I ask," he sighs, looking so relieved that Belle feels even more confused now. "Alright, I'll leave you be - just be careful, Bellona. I don't know what's coming, but I don't think it's good."

* * *

"Do you know what he meant?" she whispers to Blaise, later.

"I have an idea," he admits, "but tread carefully, Belle - whether I'm right or wrong, this could be a delicate matter for Daph. Be kind."

Daphne is already in Belle's bed, reading one of those saucy novels she sometimes dives into when Belle is writing her letters, and she Silences the curtains as soon as Belle is under the covers.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there today," she says lightly, holding her page with her finger. "Did I miss anything?"

"Theo came to visit," Belle says, leaning up on her elbow so she can look Daphne in the face. "He wants me to warn you. Something to do with Susan."

Daphne's lovely, pale face goes very pink.

"Well," she says. "Not how I wanted you to find out."

Oh. Belle feels very stupid indeed - Daphne has been her friend for all these years, and this never occurred to her. Has she been too caught up in her own head to notice such an important part of one of the most important people in her life? Shame on her if so.

"I had hoped to tell you and Blaise together," she says, still pink but now determined as well. "But- well, I'm very angry with Theo. He's spoiled it now, hasn't he?"

"Not unless we let him, Daph."

"Oh, alright, well- Susan and I are seeing one another. We have been since- since November."

"Daphne! Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm a lesbian, Bellona," Daphne says, rolling her eyes. "People don't just say that."

"Maybe not to the whole school," Belle concedes. "But to me. You know you can tell me anything at all, don't you?"

"Not this," Daphne says. "Oh, Belle, you really don't know, do you? I- this is dangerous. My parents are very old-fashioned. If they hear about this it could be… bad."

"That's what Theo said," Belle says. "I don't understand, though, what could your parents do? He said you need to be more discreet, so Astoria doesn't find out-"

All the pretty pink leaves Daphne's face, and Belle wonders how she could possibly have made such a mess of this.

"Daphne-"

"It's different for you, Belle," Daphne says, distress creeping in ahead of her determination. "You've got your uncle, but I- my parents can't know until I leave home. They can't."

"What about Susan's parents?"

"Oh, they know already," Daphne says, looking almost cross. "Because they're decent - my parents aren't- you've met my parents, Belle! You know how they are! They think Astoria and I need to marry nicely, and have nice children, and be nice. Su and I aren't nice, not the way they think, and-"

Belle gets her arms around Daphne because she can't think of anything else to do, and holds on until Daphne stops shaking.

"Well," she says, after a long time. "I am very happy for you, and I know that Blaise will be as well."

* * *

The next meeting of the Dueling Club, Susan Bones sidles up to where Belle and Blaise are having a cup of tea.

"Hello," she says, cheerfully but quietly. "I'm Susan, Daphne's girlfriend - lovely to officially meet you both."

 **VI.**

Harry becomes more distant, after the disaster with Draco, and Pansy becomes somehow more insufferable.

Better she speaks out against Harry, who is well used to it, than she turns her nosy ire on Daphne, who would suffer for it. Now that Belle knows, she's noticed the patterns, and she knows that Theo is right. Astoria will hear the rumours about Daphne, and soon - there is no avoiding that - and while Belle thinks Daphne might be better facing her sister head on, it is not her decision to make.

Whatever Belle's personal feelings on it, she will stick by Daphne's choices in all things. She and Blaise do all they can to cover Daphne's unusual absences, and find allies in Ernie Macmillan and, by some peculiar miracle, Zacharias Smith in doing so.

"Zacharias has his reasons," says Blaise of his dueling partner. Blaise seems to know all sorts of tidbits he hasn't shared with Belle, and that is much, much more annoying than Daphne holding Susan as a secret. "Trust me, Belle - he's on Daphne's side. Well, on Susan's, which is the same thing just now."

Ernie continues to surprise Belle, because aside from his bombastic charm offensive, he's also remarkably discreet.

"Happened on them while I was coming back in from checking on the roses," he says quietly while they're sneaking a quick smoke behind the greenhouses during their first out-of-doors meeting of the Dueling Club. He means of course the roses Professor Sprout is nursing as a favour for his grandmother, and Belle wonders just what it must be like, to be a Hufflepuff. If it meant being close to Ernie more often, she might not mind it. "Su went red as a tomato, and your Daphne went white as a ghost - I think she'd've hexed me had Su not stayed her hand."

"She can be very vicious when she wants to be," Belle agrees, with no small measure of pride. The cigarettes Ernie produced are very tangy, and they smell revolting - Belle will write to Anatole and ask for something decent for next week, she thinks. "What of Zacharias?"

"Oh, he and Su are very close," Ernie says, sounding surprised that she doesn't already know this. "An odd pair, but there you go - personally I think it's because she tells him to fuck off when he gets high and mighty."

"You trust him?"

It is odd to ask such a question of someone so new to her little circle of friends, but she trusts Ernie. He's far too direct to ever lie about something important like this.

"Zach is only awful when it won't hurt one of us," Ernie says firmly. "I trust him, Belle. I'd have cursed him into a coma by now otherwise."

"Well," she says. "Good."

They smoke another terrible cigarette each, and then Belle shatters Ernie's Shield Charm. It's only the second she's broken this week, though, which is a marked improvement.

* * *

Anatole sends two boxes of menthol cigarettes, two of herbal, and two of actual tobacco. He also sends a small black glass bottle marked only with a neat red X on the label.

Belle thinks of that horrible page in Harry's Potions book. For enemies indeed.

* * *

But of course, there is only so much she and Ernie and Blaise and Zacharias can do, when Theo Nott also knows.

Theo slips. Pansy hears. Astoria is told.

The Howler arrives the next morning.

 **VII.**

Belle considers the fortnight's detention for hexing Pansy Parkinson and Astoria Greengrass to be a small price for the distraction it caused at breakfast, allowing Blaise and Flora Carrow to get Daphne and the Howler out of the great hall.

Belle follows, teachers' voices echoing behind her, and hurls white-hot fire at the horrible red envelope. It disintegrates mid-word, mid-screech, and Daphne bursts into tears.

"Oh, Daph, no, please don't," Blaise says helplessly, shifting just enough for Belle to get her arms around Daphne as well. "Please, Daphne, we'll sort it, I promise, we'll make it right-"

"We can't," Daphne sobs, "no, we can't, because Astoria has won and now I don't- have- a home-"

"Of course you do," Belle says, kissing Daphne's hair and holding her tighter. "Number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Oh!" She hadn't meant to make Daphne cry harder! "Oh no, Daph, I'm sorry, come on-"

Flora Carrow has gone and returned with Susan Bones in tow, and it's only as Susan gathers Daphne up and releases Belle and Blaise from some of their duty that she realises they've been surrounded, somewhat. Not by Astoria's vile little friends, but by Flora, and Roman Urquhart, and by Harry and Ron and Hermione, and Ernie and Zacharias and Hannah and Justin.

"It won't always be this way," Susan is saying, guiding Daphne toward the stairs. "Come along, Daph, we'll get you upstairs and see if Madam Pomfrey has something that might help you catch your breath, come on."

Belle doesn't think she's ever seen anyone have a panic attack before, but that must be what's happening to Daphne.

"Good shout on roasting the Howler," Flora says, frowning in toward the great hall, where everyone is watching with wide eyes. "A little flamboyant for the occasion, but still - good shout."

"Thank you," Belle says. "For helping her."

"We aren't all like Parkinson, Black. You of all people should know that."

* * *

Normally, a student who's endured such a shock as Daphne's is given leave to go home for a day or two, or at least to absent themselves from class and remain in the common room or the dormitory.

Neither is an option for Daphne, and so Belle seeks alternative solutions.

"Good evening, sir!" she says, as cheerfully as she can when Blaise and Susan are supporting a still-weeping Daphne behind her. "I'm afraid we've had a bit of a rough day, and I don't have any more cake, but I was wondering if you had a moment?"

"I saw the kind of day you've had, Greengrass," Professor Hagrid says, ushering them in with a kind smile. "Come on then, come in, I've some nice game pie just crisped lovely, come on and we'll see if I've enough for us all."

Daphne curls up very small in a big chair, and Susan curls around her. Ernie and Zacharias had been reluctant to stand down their resolute guard, but Ernie at least had seen the sense of Belle's plan.

She only hopes Professor Hagrid is amenable.

"I was wondering, sir," she says, "and I know that it is a presumption on my part, but-"

"Of course she can stay here a day or two," he says, patting Belle's shoulder and nearly driving her to her knees. "So long as she's comfortable with it, I don't see why it should be a problem."

"I feel like I'm being cowardly," Daphne says, looking up with bleary eyes. "I should face them all down - that's what you'd do, Belle!"

"Yes," Belle says, "but I have no manners."

For some reason, that makes Daphne laugh.

"You're so Gallic sometimes," she says. "I'm sorry, Professor, I couldn't possibly impose like this-"

"You are not imposing," Hagrid says, surprisingly fierce. "I know as well as any of you how cruel that hall can be at dinnertime, so you're welcome to come here as much as you need. Now - pie?"

* * *

Daphne stays a single night with Professor Hagrid - long enough, she says, for the urge to murder Astoria to abate.

She accepts the change of clothes Belle brings with her with a small smile, her eyes still a little red but the desolate paleness gone from her face. Professor Hagrid steps outside with Belle to allow Daph a little privacy, and he seems at a loss for words for a moment.

"She's very brave," he says at last. "Braver'n I was, I think."

"Or me," Belle agrees. "I hid in the library and cried for a week when everyone found out about my papa."

"Very brave," Professor Hagrid says again. "Be sure she knows she's welcome here any time - don't think I've ever had such a polite guest."

"Huh!"

"You're far too direct to be as polite as she is," he says, smiling down at Bellona from his great height. "But there's a place for that too, so don't take it too hard."

* * *

Daphne enters the great hall with her chin up, and pauses only to lean down and kiss Susan good morning before taking the seat Blaise has saved for her.

"Pass the milk, please," she says, and Belle might not have noticed the tremor in her hand if she hadn't been looking so carefully. Professor Hagrid is right - Belle can't remember ever seeing someone behave as bravely as Daphne.

"What you were saying yesterday morning, Belle," Blaise says, passing a slice of toast thickly layered with gooseberry jam across the table to her in return for a bowl of porridge laced with raspberries and a good shake of sugar, "about your house - what do you think of that lovely big bedroom looking over the back garden for Daphne?"

Daphne goes very still, and Belle knows that if she treats this as anything but a casual conversation, she risks ruining it.

"I'll have to make something of the garden first," she says idly. "It's half a jungle now, which is not the most welcoming of views."

"You do Herbology, Daph," Blaise says, putting a plate of eggs and black pudding down in front of Daphne. "What plants would suit an urban garden? Oh, we could do a raised bed, for herbs! And maybe grow tomatoes - what do you think, hmm?"

Daphne's shoulders ease a little, and by the time they've eaten, she's smiling more-or-less normally.

It's a start. If anyone dares ruin it, Belle might just kill them.

 **VIII.**

"We could always kill them," Ernie says in a reasonable tone, while they're waiting for everyone to arrive for the next Dueling Club meeting. It's very warm and sunny, and Daphne looks as at ease under Susan's arm as she's ever looked… Anywhere, really.

Belle is under Ernie's arm, too. No one has dared to say a word about that.

"We aren't killing anyone," Daphne says, with firm finality. They've been having this debate for the past half an hour, Blaise and Hannah and Justin shepherding the first few club members to arrive into some sort of normality so that Ernie and Zacharias can help Belle convince Daphne to allow harm to befall Astoria.

It's Astoria's fault that their parents have disowned Daph, after all. No matter that Maman and Madame Sofia both have already laid a claim to her, nor even that Daph's grandmother has sent a Howler to Astoria for being a dirty rat. That's all very nice, but it won't really sooth the hurt - Belle suspects only time will do that.

Vengeance might cheer her up a bit, though.

"All we're saying, Daph," Belle says, pausing to take a drag of her cigarette, "is that you needn't get your hands dirty. That's what we're for."

"No one would ever believe I'd committed a murder," Justin says with a mildly alarming eagerness, appearing at Zacharias' elbow without Belle seeing his approach. "Everyone thinks I'm some kind of silly idiot - I'd be clean away before they even knew there was a body."

Daphne is smiling, or very nearly.

"But if you'd rather we didn't commit grievous bodily harm," Zacharias says, in a way even more sardonic than Daphne at her most cutting. "There's always a smear campaign."

Daphne looks Zacharias dead in the eye.

"Tell me more," she says.

* * *

At the end of the meeting, there are half a dozen young ones gathered around Daphne, all of them looking a little shy and all of them blushing just as pink as she is - but none of them seem aggressive. None of them seem to bear her any ill will.

"It's like you, Belle," Blaise says. "Daph thought she was alone, but she is not. See?"

"I see," Belle says. "I'm so relieved. I was afraid-"

"I think she might even be less alone than you were," Blaise says gently, squeezing tight to Belle's hand. "And I think you're happier to see her safe than you were to find companions in your own fear."

She narrows her eyes up at him.

"You're far too intuitive for your own good, you know."

"No," he says. "I just know you very well."

 **IX.**

Belle's birthday is the second of May - Jeanne's as well, which is why poor Blanchefleur was made even more a beast of burden last week than usual - and that is why she gets out of bed early, very early.

She is seventeen today. If the world were just, she would be receiving a watch from her papa for this birthday, but instead he is gone, and she has only a smooth marble memorial under a Judas tree in her grandmother's garden.

Neville Longbottom is sitting under the tree that is theirs, she supposes, overlooking the lake. She had not expected anyone else up at this time save perhaps Hermione, but somehow she is not surprised to find him there.

"Morning," he says. "Hermione told me. Happy birthday, Bellona."

He holds out a little parcel and a very big card. He has beautiful handwriting, as lovely as Belle's own, and she wonders that she has never seen it before in all this time of knowing him.

"Thank you, Neville," she says, accepting the parcel and the card with a smile, and taking her usual seat between the two high roots. "You did not need to do such a thing, but thank you all the same."

The card is simple, two dancing penguins in plainly drawn black tie, and Belle laughs. It's completely ridiculous, nothing she expected to receive today and treasured because of it.

"It's only a little something," he says, looking embarrassed now, "but I thought- well. I didn't know if your mother would know."

Inside the little parcel is a box, and inside the box is a dainty little pocket watch wrought in white and yellow gold, on a long, thin gold chain.

"Oh, Neville Longbottom," she says, ignoring how thick with tears her throat is. "I cannot possibly accept this-"

"It wasn't expensive," he rushes to assure her. "It wasn't my mother's, either, in case that's what you're afraid of."

"But Neville-"

"It was my grandmother's," he says. "She ah- she was kinder about it than usual when I wrote to ask."

"Will you put it on for me?"

He does. It hangs a beautiful length, the chain fitting neatly against the delicate chain of silver and pearls that was one Grand-mère's that she always wears.

"It is too much, Neville," she says, twining both chains between her fingers so the beautiful little watch rests in the palm of her hand.

He says nothing.

"Why are you always so kind to me, Neville Longbottom?" she asks, turning once more to face him. "It is- I have done nothing to deserve it."

"You asked me not to be afraid of you," he says. "Do you remember? Years ago. I remember. So I haven't been afraid of you, and that's let me see that you aren't scary at all, really. I think you're lonely, mostly. I thought this might make you a little less lonely."

His hands are very big and very warm when Bellona takes them, squeezing in a strange sort of thanks she cannot quite articulate. It is a bright, sunny sort of morning, and Belle feels less ill at ease now than she did when she slipped out of the dormitory.

"I do not deserve a friend as kind as you, Neville."

"You have me anyway," he says, and nothing more.

They sit until the sounds of the school stirring drift out on the breeze, and then they go into breakfast.

* * *

Blaise and Daphne have croissants.

"A very eager house elf appeared with them," Daph says, doing her very best not to laugh. "He said to wish Harry Potter's sister a happy birthday, and not to let people we don't like have any."

Blaise is already eating, but he pats a beautifully patterned cake tin with a meaningful wiggle of his eyebrows.

"I was a little worried when you were already gone," Daphne says, adding a sprinkle of cinnamon to her milk. "We weren't sure-"

"I wasn't either," Belle says, "but I went for a walk, and Neville found me. Or I found him. We talked, and he gave me my birthday present."

"You'll be inundated with presents today," Daphne says. "Your suitor arrived with something enormous, and I saw Granger with a little gift bag, and I think I saw Weasley's little owl arriving with something as well. Oh, and I know Su has something for you, and I suspect the sweets that Flora had delivered this morning aren't for her - you know how careful she has to be of sugar, what with her diabetes."

"I hardly expected something of you two, never mind anyone else! And I have no idea what you're talking about. Suitor indeed."

Ernie blows her a kiss from across the hall, which does absolutely nothing to help her case with Blaise and Daphne, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves.

"Yes, well," Blaise says, finally free of pastry. "You've an awful lot more friends than you realised, de Poitiers."

"Shut up, Zabini," she says, blushing and bumping her shoulder into his. "You'll embarrass me. I have a reputation to uphold."

"I don't know why you're so convinced that you're scary, Belle," Daphne says, putting chopped hazelnuts into Belle's porridge without looking away from her elegantly arrayed croissants and fruit. "No one except Pansy is afraid of you, not since you burned the blood quills."

"She's right," Blaise says, a moustache of milk bright on his upper lip, but not as bright as his smile. "Now, eat up, and then we can get to the first of your presents."

"Not the first," Daphne says. "You said Longbottom gave you a present already - what did he give you?"

"Oh!"

Belle tugs the pretty watch from under her blouse, letting it rest once again in the palm of her hand and clicking it open to show the pretty two-tone face, the dainty black hands, and the fine little sapphire at the 12.

"I'd hide this from Macmillan, if I were you," Daphne says, once they've oohed and aahed. "He might challenge poor Longbottom."

"I don't know what you mean," Belle says, tucking Neville's watch under her blouse with Grand-mère's chain and ignoring the heat in her cheeks. "Now come on, eat up, or we shall be late for class."

Blaise looks troubled, though.

"I didn't even think to get you a watch, Belle," he says. "I should have, with your father being- I had Mama order your present, but I never thought. I'm sorry."

"Don't be absurd," Belle scolds him, because truthfully she would never have expected such a thing from him - Blaise is her family. She does not need a watch to confirm it.

"I'll be just as absurd as I wish, you," he returns. "But you're right - we should get to class. Eat up."

Daphne's smiling her tiny, conspiratorial little smile, which means there's something strange ahead. A singing telegram is right at the top of Belle's list of fears, but there are other horrors that might be visited upon her for Daph's amusement.

"Wait," she says, Blaise linking her left arm and Daphne her right on the way to Potions. "You mentioned presents?"

* * *

Owls arrive for Bellona all through the day - Blanchefleur screes all the way down to the dungeons, clattering to a halt beside Belle's cauldron with a basket clasped in her talons.

"Oh, you silly girl, you," Belle coos, guiding Blanchefleur up onto her shoulder. "How rude of you to interrupt a lesson!"

"I'm not one for interruptions usually," Professor Slughorn agrees, "but for such a pretty owl I might make an exception. Special occasion, my dear?"

"My birthday, sir," Belle says, dipping her head a little. "My seventeenth - poor Blanchefleur has come all the way from Valence, and with such a burden!"

"Why! An adult already - I wouldn't have thought it of you, dear girl - I thought you were the youngest of us all."

"She's more mature than she seems, sir," Ron pipes up, much to Blaise and Daphne's amusement. Belle scowls as convincingly as she can at him, but she's in too good of humour to be truly annoyed.

"Well, a very happy birthday," he says, patting her shoulder. "And a dash more yarrow, I think, that'll bring up the colour beautifully, there you go."

At the end of class, he leaves a tiny little bottle wrapped in a scrap of blue silk in her basket.

"Just in case," he says, holding up a newly-fallen feather for her inspection. "I've done a little reading - thought this might help."

It's a balm, Daphne tells her upon close inspection on the way to Charms, for soothing her scalp - a strange, thoughtful little gift, and not one she expected. She's tried similar things for her temples, where the pinfeathers show strongest, but this feels softer and richer than anything she's managed to brew herself, and she wonders what she can give Professor Slughorn in thanks.

"He's warming to you," Blaise teases. "You'll be coming to Slug Club dinners yet, Belle."

* * *

The fabulous eagle owl, all sleek and massive, that Blaise's mother favours arrives during Charms - it is a beautiful creature, but deadly, just as Madame Sofia is, and Belle does her best not to flinch when it lands on her shoulder. Blanchefleur's talons are one thing, but Gamayun's are another entirely.

"I might have known," Blaise says, scowling right in Gamayun's great golden eyes. "Mama already sent a gift with mine, but of course she had to send something else to upstage me."

"I'm sure it's a trifle," Belle says, knowing that it will not be. Sofia Nikolaevna has never given a gift that is less than spectacular in all the time Belle has known her. Her own mother gifted Blaise with a combat harness for his birthday in February, with one of her very own feathers hidden in the leather - for luck, for lightness, and for fire resistance.

Veela are very close to firebirds, after all.

"Sofia Nikolaevna wouldn't know a trifle if it bit her on the behind," Daphne says, ducking away from Blaise's automatic slap with a laugh. "I'm right and you know it!"

"Well, into the basket it goes for now," Belle says, dodging under the book Daphne throws at Blaise in retaliation. "We can open everything after dinner, in the library. Even Madam Pince-"

"We have a special meeting of the Dueling Club tonight, actually," Daph says, blocking Blaise's pencil case with Belle's hardback notebook and pushing Belle down under the table by the top of her head. "You're coming along whether you like it or not, before you fight."

* * *

The special meeting is a birthday party. There are balloons.

"I'm going to smother you this evening," Belle says, squeezing Daph and Blaise's hands. "Both of you. I'm going to suffocate you."

"Don't be sour," Daphne says cheerfully. "It doesn't suit you one bit."

Frankly, she's amazed by how many people are here. Someone - Hermione and Blaise, almost certainly - has set up a long table and benches, like a house table in the great hall but laid with a blue-and-white gingham tablecloth and three huge vases of lilies. Fleur-de-lis. What else?

"Happy birthday, Belle," Blaise says, because the lilies are white, yes, but some of them are also blue - she's never known blue lilies to grow anywhere but in Grand-mère's cloister, off the Lady's chambers in Valence. "Mama brought them - good old Slug helped me get them in."

Belle has had one letter from Grand-mère since Christmas, and Jeanne says she has had only four, but these lilies - a peace offering. They already mean more than whatever bauble Grand-mère sent as a gift.

"Don't be saucy, either," Daphne says, like an afterthought. "You aren't nearly as funny as you think you are."

Belle knocks her hip into Daph's as they move toward the table, and is more curious than she would ever admit - here are Harry and Ron and Hermione, Ernie and Susan and Hannah and Zach and Justin, Flora and Roman, Loony Luna and Michael and Anthony, and others, too.

Leandra, who is one-sixteenth a siren. Toby, whose grandmother knows Ukki and Aleksi, who is among the keepers of the Finnish forests. Isolde, who hears the song of the stars. Hector, who speaks Merish because he learned it from his grandmother, whose father lived below the waves.

Most of Dueling Club has shown up at the promise of cake, Belle suspects, and because there is always some fun to be had in the midst of Daphne's firm, but not strict, lessons. There are more sweets and treats on the table than Belle could eat in a year, even with her bottomless appetite for such things, and her basket of gifts from home is there, too, with parcels from her friends.

"Mine is sweets," Flora Carrow says, while Roman Urquhart bends to kiss her cheek. "I've never seen anyone eat as many sweets as you, Black, so I thought I'd best keep you in sugar so you can keep an eye on the little ones when I'm gone, next year."

Roman gives her a black armband emblazoned with a bright silver C, and stuffs his fingers in his ears with a grin when she tries to object.

"Oh, but Roman - come back here! I cannot accept this, no one even likes me-"

"Half the House has been clamouring about trials for next year," Roman assures her. "Who else could it be, Black? I like Blaise probably a little more than I like you, but he has less an air of command than Flitwick. You, on the other hand, will have the Cup in hand by Christmas."

He makes her put the Quidditch captain's armband on over her normal robes, much to her absolute mortification, but she can't pretend that the flush in her cheeks isn't partly from delight. Captain! Her!

"Did you tell him you didn't want it?" she asks Blaise, who looks affronted, for some reason.

"You may not have realised it, Belle," he says, "but you're very literally the only reason we came second in the Quidditch Cup this year. You deserve this. Please attempt to enjoy it without justifying it."

"Similarly," Daphne says, adjusting the way the armband sits over Belle's sleeve, "please do try and enjoy your party - we've all worked very hard on it."

* * *

An hour into the party, Belle slips away to have a smoke.

Ernie follows her, and he takes her face in his hands and kisses her without preamble. It is just over half an hour before they make their way back to the table. Professor Sprout very nearly catches them on her way to tend to Ernie's grandmother's roses, which makes Belle laugh so hard that she almost forgets to hide her cigarettes.

Luckily, Professor Sprout likes menthols, and she doesn't comment on the smear of pink lipstick around Ernie's mouth.

* * *

Three hours later, when it's right about time for bed, Belle is warm under Ernie's arm and Daphne's sleepy under Susan's, Blaise is lying right down the middle of the table and leaning up on one elbow, impossibly elegant, and Harry is arguing at length with Ron about… Something, with Harry sitting on the table and Ron on the bench beside Hermione, who is leaning against Harry's legs and looking amused by it all. Zach and Justin are attempting to play Exploding Snap with Hannah somewhere near Blaise's feet, but she's so damnably quick that mostly, the boys are losing.

She hasn't opened half of her gifts. The ones from Grand-mère and the aunts are jewellery, the same from the twins, and most of it was probably taken from the vault - sentimental, but unsurprising. Ukki has sent her some kind of protective charm he made himself, she can feel the magic of it humming through the soft calfskin leather bag, and Aleksi has sent her the sort of flight leathers a Veela wears for long journeys, adjusted to suit sitting on a broom instead of soaring on wings. Jeanne's gift will be herself spending most of the summer in London, and Belle laughs every time she imagines telling her younger self that Jeanne presence could be something to be desired.

Maman sent her a key. Just a key. It matches the key to Grimmauld Place that Blaise had made into a bracelet for her, though, which seems strange. It looks like an older key than Belle's own, so unless it's… Unless it's Papa's…

"Still in there, de Poitiers?" Ernie asks gently, squeezing her shoulders a little. "Haven't lost you, have we?"

"I'm here," she promises, toying with her keys. "Just… thinking."

"Think more quietly," Zach calls. "We're trying to concentrate."

The cards on the table bang, much to Hannah's raucous delight, and Belle settles a little more into Ernie's warmth.

There's change on the cool, dewey air. Good or ill, it's coming, and Belle is wary of it either way.

But she has her friends, and some lovely birthday presents, and this evening.

* * *

 _Belle -_

 _I'm sorry this is a little late, but Blanchefleur has been busy all week and I didn't trust another owl._

 _My part is the smaller of the two - I hope you find it useful! - but your dad's is the most important. Sirius had me order this last year, because he had very exacting standards. He knew it would take ages to make, and he wanted to be sure it was ready on time. I'm sure he's glad of that now._

 _I don't know what to say, except that he chose something very close to his own, and I hope he chose well._

 _Happy birthday, Belle._

 _With love,_

 _Remus_

"He ordered me a watch," she says, and Blaise settles her closer against his side while Daphne crowds in tight against her back. "How did he know?"

It has a dark blue face, dotted with stars, and a window to show the clockwork on one side and another to show the phases of the moon on the other. The hands shimmer, and Belle has a horrible feeling they're set with diamond.

It is exquisite. It is very nearly garish. It is like having a little piece of Papa to wear on her wrist.

Daph kisses her hair, Blaise kisses her temple, and they don't say a word about the tears running down her face. There's really nothing to say.

 **X.**

Belle and Daphne are just finished tucking the matryoshkas back together when the noise starts.

The matryoshkas a personalised set from Blaise, and while they are special, while they are beautiful, while she does not dare display them for fear of Pansy, she also knows Blaise well enough to know that there must be something under the beauty of them.

He won't tell her though, the brat.

Much as the armlets Daph gave her - good Welsh gold, twisted and woven into a pair of torc-style bracelets for her upper arms. Beautiful and valuable for their owns sakes, for the rarity of gold from the Clogau mines, but Belle had nearly fallen over in surprise when she'd cast a Shield Charm in Dueling Club and found herself surrounded by a spell that very much did not originate from her wand.

"Oh, silly me," Daphne had said, smiling fit to split her face. "Did I forget to mention that?"

The armlets are in a lockbox in the bottom of Belle's trunk, along with all her other jewellery save her two necklaces, her key-bracelet, and Papa's watch. She can't really look at that yet, but she wears it every day to accustom herself to it anyway.

"What a busy year this has been," Daph sighs, locking the dolls' case and tucking it into Belle's trunk. "I can hardly believe it's over, can you?"

"It does seem strange," Belle admits. "And I'm a little worried as to what Maman did to my house - do you think she decorated it? I hope she didn't, she has such boring taste."

"I'm sure it's fine, Belle."

And then, the noise.

It isn't that it's sudden, really, and it isn't even that it's late in the evening - they're only putting away their treasures because it's around the time Pansy tends to come in and start her ridiculous preparations for bed, which can take anything up to an hour and a half - but the noise builds to a level that they can hear it all the way down here, and that means something truly drastic is going on upstairs.

Belle leaves off her outer robe, but she pulls on her boots. Daphne's boots are heavier than Belle's, thick-soled things made for stomping, and Belle is unhappily sure that Daphne will need them before the night is out.

Blaise meets them in the common room, as do Flora and Roman.

"It sounds like a fight," Roman says. "No one gets in here. No one gets past us."

The little ones are all peeping around their dormitory doors, and it matters very little to Belle whose parents are branded with Voldemort's mark and whose are not - they are all children. Even the ones who've been in Daphne's club since Christmas are in no way prepared for anything like this.

Belle isn't sure that she is herself, but what choice do they have?

* * *

Flora's hair is braided into a crown, woven through with acid-green ribbons that catch what little light there is to be had in the dungeons.

"You three are better fighter than we are," she says of herself and Roman, when they're at the junction where the dungeons split - classrooms, storerooms, former torture chambers one way, common room down a turn you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. "I want you to stay here, just in case."

"Absolutely not," Daphne says. "We're the common room least likely to be attacked, Flo, and you know it - you and Roman are the best defensive duelers I've ever seen, and I won't have you wasting that upstairs when you're more use here."

Flora and Roman don't look even slightly surprised by Daph taking charge.

"Yes, General," Roman says, snapping off a sharp military salute. "And mind how you go, Black - you're needed next year, don't forget it."

"Why did he single me out?" Belle asks as Blaise and Daphne hurry her along. "I am no more reckless than either of you!"

"If you believe that, you'll believe anything," Blaise says, pushing her behind him as they mount the stairs to the entrance hall, and-

* * *

Belle has never been in battle before.

* * *

She did not expect this.

* * *

Ronald Weasley is probably the person Belle would least like to duel against. Harry has one direct, effective tactic, and Hermione is too technical, but Ron has an instinctive flow with his attacks that makes Belle wary of him, even now that they are friends.

She wonders if it comes of having so many brothers, and Ginny.

"'Lo, Belle!" he says cheerfully, throwing a hex at a man in a mask that knocks him into a wall so hard that he cracks, somewhere, and stays down. "Busy sort of an evening!"

There are others - Hermione and Ginny back-to-back, and there is Loony Luna with Neville Longbottom, Susan and Zach, a handful of Ravenclaws whose names Belle can't remember because she's gotten bad at names now that she has so many to remember-

"Protego!"

"Oh, that's handy," Ron says, stepping behind her Shield. "Try not to get killed, Belle, Ernie'll hang me by my toes if you do, and then Harry'll throw me off the Astronomy Tower."

And he's away.

* * *

Ernie takes down a Death Eater who was aiming at Belle with a shoulder to the gut, and some silly part of her that isn't terrified of the potential for death flutters at how sweet it is, that he is protective of her when she's so much better at fighting than he is.

"Hello, my dear," he says, ducking down to kiss her before leaping over a fallen statue to engage some other poor fool.

He's wearing his kilt. Only Ernie.

* * *

Belle spies a fool who looks remarkably like Marcus Flint aiming his wand at Susan Bones, and does the only thing that occurs to her.

She runs up behind him and kicks him as hard as she can between the legs.

"Nice catch, Belle!" Susan says, and Belle misses the rest of what she says because was that Fleur? And what can only be Ron's brother, based on that jaw?

* * *

"Wotcher, Belley," Dora says, pushing Belle behind a pillar, out of the way of a bolt of bright green magic. "Looking well - battle suits you."

"I think I might throw up," Belle offers, because she's lost one sleeve entirely and her hair has all fallen down save the sides, which Daphne braided for her. Dora, meanwhile, looks more alive than she has in a very long time, her hair shining dark and lucious, her eyes bright and fierce.

Battle suits one of them, and despite her name, it is not Bellona.

"That's the spirit!" Dora says, as if it is a small thing - which for her, it is, thanks to her being an Auror.

Belle wishes Remus were here, and regrets that a moment later when he runs past with a smile and a wave.

* * *

Fleur screams, and her hex hits the monster looming over her beau a moment before Belle's, a moment after Mrs Weasley's.

* * *

Belle doesn't see Blaise and Daphne until the dust is settling, and the Death Eaters are fleeing.

They follow. Professor Snape is among them, to no one's real surprise but to Belle's bitterest disappointment - how dare he live, when her father was dead?

Harry screams. Snape screams. Professor Dumbledore-

Belle never liked him, but even he did not deserve this.

* * *

Belle is permitted entry to the hospital wing only because she broke her wrist and did not realise it.

"Bird bones," she says wryly as Dora sets and splints it, and almost earns a smile. Now that the thrill of fighting is gone, now that Professor Dumbledore is laid in state in the great hall, Dora is once more as she was at Christmas - diminished.

"Running into action by kicking a chap in the fork seems more to blame," Remus scolds her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pointedly not looking at Dora. "Figure out what your watch does yet?"

Make a bloody great noise, as far as she can tell - Daphne understands these things better, and Blaise as well, but the damn thing screamed every time Belle hit the ground, even of her own volition.

"Give me a reason to kill you for sending it to me?" she suggests, but she reaches up to squeeze his hand all the same. "I'm sorry, Remus."

"I'm sorry for all of us," Dora says, looking anywhere but at Remus. "Dumbledore was the very last thing You-Know-Who was afraid of."

"We'll manage," Remus says, and Belle pretends not to notice how hard they both blush when their eyes meet for just a moment.

An argument three beds over draws their attention before things become any more awkward, so shrill that Belle can only understand the French.

French means Fleur. She pushes past Remus and Dora to go to Fleur's defence, if need be, and if not then at least Belle can try and hold her back.

The Weasley asleep in the bed, with bandages and score marks on his face, must be Bill - the source of the engagement ring on Fleur's hand, which is much smaller than Belle expected

"You!" Fleur cries, seizing Belle by the good hand and drawing her close. "Tell them! They think I am so vain and stupid that a few little scratches will stop me from loving him!"

Belle doesn't try to hide how her jaw drops.

"If you believe that," she says, mustering all the frostiness she can, doing her best to emulate Grand-mère, "then you do not deserve to have Fleur join your family."

"Belle," Remus says sharply. "Not the time."

"Oh, it's never the time with you, is it, Remus?" Dora says bitterly, turning to face him like a whirlwind. Her hair darkens from the mousy brown it's been since last summer to a black like Belle's own, like Dromeda's, and her face grows sharper and haughtier - also like Belle's, like Dromeda's - and she is once more as bright and fierce as she was in battle. "Everything can always be put off for another time, can't it?"

"Not now, Dora," he says. "Not here."

"Yes now! Yes, here! She doesn't know Bill half as long or as well as I know you, but they aren't letting this come between them!"

"It's different and you know it," Remus says, in a firm, gentle voice that Belle recognises and hates - it's the voice he uses when he's teaching. How dare he use it on Dora! How dare he make her so sad for so long! Belle is a little embarrassed to not have understood sooner, but now that she does, she's furious. "He'll probably never transform, and he isn't so much older, either-"

"If you're going to be so stupid about this," Belle says, still angry enough to be cold, even with Remus, "then I shall write to Anatole and have him find someone who sees Dora's worth. How dare you disrespect her so, Remus!"

"I've been saying that all along," Mrs Weasley pipes up, which softens Belle a tiny, tiny amount toward her - even is Mrs Weasley has been doing her best to sabotage Fleur's happiness, at least she has been working toward Dora's. "You're being very stubborn about this, Remus, considering you're wrong."

Harry looks very small, but Belle spares him only a glance - once she's finished being angry with Remus, she will go to him.

* * *

Belle knocks on Professor Hagrid's door, and throws herself on him as soon as he opens it.

"Oh, yes, well," he says, holding on tight with one arm while he uses the other hand to blow his nose on a very large yellow hankie. "I won't be much of a host, I'm afraid-"

"Sit down," she tells him, "and I will make the tea."

She is glad that she thought to bring him the new hankies she ordered, as a thank you for his kindness to Daphne.

* * *

"And what say you of our new Headmistress, my dear?"

"Hello, sir," Belle says, stopping for Phineas Nigellus only because she is tired, and any pause is welcome. "I hope you've been kinder to Professor McGonagall."

"She'd take it as an insult if I were, that one. Hard as nails."

"And you haven't a sympathetic bone in your body."

"That too," he confesses. "If I did, I might have worn it out for your sake before wasting it on that girl."

"What do you want, Grandfather?" she asks. "No games, no foolishness - just tell me."

"Grandfather," he says. "I quite like that. And as to what I want, girl, is that I want to address all this disappearing into dark corners that you've been doing with the Macmillan boy."

Belle thought Ukki finding out about Ernie would be embarrassing. She suspects that it will be nothing compared to her long-dead several-times great-grandfather addressing her from a painting of a Medusa and her handmaiden.

"Ladies?" she says, in Greek to make a point. "Would you be so kind as to hold him down so I can kill him? I promise I'll arrange for the repair of your portrait."

"You are the very first person to speak to us in sixty years," the Medusa says, ad her teeth are very sharp. "I'm sure we could kill him for you, my dear."

"I speak Greek, you know!" he huffs. "There's a talent for languages in the family, my girl - now be serious. Why couldn't you have taken up with that nice Nott boy? He doesn't have a Dark Mark, as far as I can tell. He'd be a better match."

"You're awful," Belle says. "Isn't he awful, ladies?"

"Revolting."

"Probably our least favourite guest, truthfully."

"And I don't see what you have against Ernie," Belle adds. "Not only is he a pureblood, he's heir to an earldom! It's Viscount Ness I've been disappearing into dark corners with!"

"And you, my dear, as head of the House of Black, have a title of your own," he says. "Has no one told you? You shouldn't have taken up with him just for to become a countess."

"My reasons for taking up with Ernie are none of your business, sir," she snaps. "And I expect you to be very helpful to Professor McGonagall, or I shall be very annoyed."

She curtsies to the ladies, and turns her shoulder to her great-times-several grandfather.

* * *

There is a funeral, and Belle feels sick. Albus Dumbledore has been honoured in every way imaginable, honoured in ways no witch or wizard has previously, with this tomb by the lake, and her father has only a smooth black stone under a Judas tree, thousands of miles from his home.

Why, truly, does Albus Dumbledore deserve so much more than Sirius Black did?

* * *

"Harry-"

He lets her draw him close, and his shoulders shake while she holds on tight. He does not cry for long, but he does cry hard, the kind of throbbing sobs that catch in the throat and offer no relief.

She wonders, for a brief, silly moment, if they do look like siblings, as Harry's house elf friend thinks. Harry is much darker than she is, of course, has what she's been told are his mother's green eyes where she has her father's dark, but maybe…

No. Aside from the hair, they will never look like brother and sister. That is what they are becoming all the same.

* * *

Getting everything to the train is a damned nightmare, and it's entirely Ernie's fault.

"Of course it doesn't fit in my trunk," she grumbles, adjusting the strap of the gorgeous lap desk he gave her for her birthday for the millionth time. "And don't you dare kiss me to distract me, Macmillan!"

"I'll kiss you, and then you can give out to me some more," he says, and that is exactly what he does. "Here, let me take the damned thing, then, if that will shut you up, de Poitiers-"

They tussle, but there's nothing to it - Belle is sad to be parting ways, sad to be losing her smoking partner as much as she is her… boyfriend.

It seems such a silly word, but she supposes that is what Ernie is.

"Up you go," she says, slapping his backside as he climbs into the carriage ahead of her. "Make room, I've got food to fit in here as well as people-"

"We won't have room for everyone-"

"You two are travelling alone," Blaise says, slamming the carriage door behind Belle.

There is a moment's silence before the carriage starts to move, and then Belle starts laughing, and then Ernie starts kissing her again.

"Who am I to smoke with over the summer, then?" he asks.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

They settle into comfortable quiet, Belle fussing with her basket of treats and Ernie fussing with her writing desk, and he takes both when they arrive at the station, and even offers her his hand to pass her down from the carriage.

"Now," he says, holding out his arm for her. "I've been doing a great deal of thinking."

"Always a dangerous way to spend your time."

"Quite. Letters?"

"Of course."

"And you're very welcome to visit me in Cromarty."

"Revolting. Come to London instead."

"Absolutely not," he says cheerfully. "Letters it is, then. Use the monogrammed paper. I'll use mine. It'll all look very elegant."

Along with the lap writing desk, Ernie stocked Belle with quills and ink and beautiful handmade paper stamped with BUdPB in the bottom corner enough to do several years, and she's far too embarrassed by it to use it to write to anyone but him.

"If you say so."

Ernie loves kissing her, and she quite likes kissing him, too, and so that's what they're doing by the time everyone catches up to them.

"Disgusting," Zacharias says, herding them toward a compartment. "Please hang curtains if you intend on doing that all the way to London, Ern."

"Shan't," Ernie says, but he does let go of Belle, at least until everyone has changed out of their robes and settled down to eat.

It's a relief of sorts, to be back in her black and white - Belle knows that she draws eyes in the street even without the distrust she earns for being a Slytherin at school, but she is used to people looking at her for the sake of Veela-glamour, and she can ignore that because it means nothing. She feels more herself in her black-and-white pinstripe sundress, with her hair loose over her shoulders, than she has all year at school.

"Very fetching," Ernie says, in kilt and plain white t-shirt. Belle is more interested in the thick cabled socks and sturdy boots he's wearing to finish the look than she'll ever admit, because she hates how much she likes the way he looks. It feels like admitting defeat, because this is not something she would find in the vingt-et-unième.

"So," Zach says, not looking up from his book when Justin lifts his legs and sits under them- oh. Well, perhaps that explains why Zacharias has been so wonderful to Susan and Daphne. "Plans for next year?"

"I'd rather talk about the summer," Blaise says, sitting back-to-back with Hannah on the floor, for some reason. Do they feel a little left out because everyone else is paired off? Belle hadn't thought of that. "Next year is… Not as interesting a prospect as I'd hoped."

"Here, here," Justin says. "So, summer?"

"London for us," Daphne says, stretching like a cat and slumping back against Susan's shoulder. "Belle and Blaise and me, I mean, although my granny has mentioned something about visiting. We'll see."

Belle's hackles raise at the slightest mention of Daphne's family, even her seemingly supportive grandmother. Perhaps that's just her natural reaction to grandmothers, though.

"I'm off home," Ernie says. "Plenty of golf and hillwalking for me."

"Disgusting," Zach says, to Belle's hearty agreement. "America, I think - my sister mentioned something about New York. We'll see. We have family over there."

"In the colonies," Justin teased. "Ah, probably much the same as Ern, only in more temperate climes - and a great deal more tennis, I think. My sister should be home from Oxford, and my brother'll be up from Eton in a couple of weeks. Nice to see them again."

"Lake Como," Hannah sighs, tipping her head back over Blaise's shoulder. "I can't wait."

"You're all terrible," Susan says. "I'll be stuck in the depths of Suffolk all summer-"

"Oh, stop it, Bones," Belle says, leaning further into Ernie's chest and closing her eyes to soak in as much of the sun spilling through the window as she can. "You know you're welcome to spend as much of it in London as you please."

Belle falls asleep against Ernie's chest, and wakes only because Blaise and Zach are having an argument about chess, each accusing the other of cheating.

How differently her year is ending, compared with how it began.

 **c)**

"'Arry! 'Arry!"

Belle looks very fancy, in a black and white dress with her hair down, and Harry can hear Dudley's attention snapping toward her.

"I am so glad I did not miss you, 'Arry," she says, beaming as she sweeps him into a hug. "Please say you will visit with me? Bring Ron and 'Ermione, you are all so welcome."

"I know, Belle," he assures her, hugging back as tight as he can. "Be safe, yeah?"

"I will try," she says, holding him at arm's length with her very brightest smile, "so long as you promise to write to me if you find yourself becoming as I was last summer, hmm?"

"I- I'll try. I'll see you in September?"

"August," Belle corrects him. "You do not think that I would miss Fleur's wedding, do you?"

She kisses him on both cheeks before releasing him - Blaise and Daphne are nearby with Belle's uncle, who is also wearing black and white stripes, and her other uncle, the one who does all the baking, waves when Harry watches Belle run back to them.

"Who," Aunt Petunia asks, sounding absolutely horrified, "was that?"

"That's my godfather's daughter," Harry says. "She can throw fireballs."

Dudley's interest snaps right back away from Belle, and Harry can't help but smile.


	9. Summer 1997

**I.**

"Your mother sent you the key?" Anatole asks, visibly annoyed at the effort of balancing all the excess luggage. Belle had offered to levitate everything through the door, but Anatole and Amand both insisted that carrying everything, because that was apparently _traditional._ Never mind that they'd never taken responsibility for anyone's luggage but Belle's before, and there was a great difference between her one trunk and birdcage, and her things, Blaise's things, _and_ Daph's things.

"Yes, Anatole, Maman sent me the key," she sighs, rolling her eyes to Blaise and Daph. "Look, I'm even using it to unlock the door."

"Sarcasm is an ugly look on you, chouette."

Amand snickers, and Belle isn't sure if he's laughing at her or at Anatole. Either is possible.

From the outside, at least, it seems that everything has been done well. The house has been sandblasted, the grimy old windows with their leaded panes replaced with white-glossed sash windows, and the door has been painted the same bright, Valentinois sky-blue as the door to Belle's bedroom in Valence. It smells a little of fresh paint and new wood when the door opens, and Belle is momentarily terrified that Maman has renovated to her own tastes, rather than to Belle's.

Then she looks.

The hallway has been widened, somehow, the previous space doubled by clever spellwork, and the suddenly high ceilings have been painted clean, smooth white to show off the crowning that was hidden under dirt and cobwebs. The staircase, previously so narrow and grubby and shadowed, sweeps elegantly upward - bright red-brown maple shines under the soft light of the chandelier above, the lush cream carpet secured with gleaming brass bars on every step. The walls are papered in alternating strips of plain cream paper, a perfect match for the carpet, and deep navy that's patterned with a scattering of feathers in the same bright brass as the fixtures above the stairs. The rest of the walls are that same plain cream, broken only by photo frames the same warm maple as the staircase. The house-elf taxidermies are gone, and the shoddy little door into the reception room to the right of the front door has been replaced by beautiful glazed double doors, one set with the Black arms and the other with the de Poitiers.

The rug that runs from the front door all the way down to the kitchen door - this is bigger, too, and no longer blighted by Grandmother Black's portrait and its ugly curtains as a neighbour - is the same navy as the paper above the stairs, patterned with more scattered feathers, this time in creams and brasses and pale sky blues. Belle enthused over a very similar rug for her and Maman's sitting room once, in a shop in Lyon, a long time ago. Maman had scolded her for it then, because even for them it had been expensive.

"Oh, _Maman._ "

"Welcome home, cherie," Amand says gently, nudging his hip to hers. "Do you like it so far?"

"The carpet on the stairs is charmed to stay clean," Blaise tells her. "Mama helped."

They move into the reception room where before, one of the windows was boarded up. Now both are replaced by big, deep bays, and there's more stained glass, in the side panels. This time in rich emerald green and a beautiful royal blue, casting leaded diamonds onto the dove grey carpet.

So much in Valence is black and white, the traditional de Poitiers colours. That Maman included so much colour here, in Belle's house, shows more understanding than Belle might ever have expected.

* * *

The garden is still horrific, but Daphne seems pleased with her view anyway.

"Imagine all that we can do with so much space," Daph says, both her arms wrapped tight around Belle's waist. "Are you sure about this, Belle? I shouldn't like to impose-"

"And I shouldn't like to see you upset ever again," Belle cuts in. "Don't dare thank me, or I won't let Amand give you dessert."

Daphne is still squeezing so hard that Belle can't quite catch her breath when Blaise comes in, and they stand together, looking out over the jungle of the back garden until Amand calls them down for dinner.

 **II.**

They venture to Paris for three reasons.

First, they must bring Daphne to Mlle. Lelong's, so that she might stand as defiantly elegant as Belle and Blaise do in her uniform. Madame Sofia and Maman are to meet them, and they will spend four nights in le 21ième before returning to London to continue the battle against the back garden - a great many of the plants and weeds are fighting back.

Second, Belle must go to Mlle. Lelong's, because she needs a set of dress robes. She has the exquisite sea-silk robes Maman gave her for Christmas last, but it feels a waste to wear them for Remus and Dora's wedding. Dromeda agrees, and swore she wouldn't speak to Belle if she dressed so beautifully with so few people to see, so she must have something to wear. Daphne needs dress robes as well, because she is, of course, coming to Remus and Dora's wedding, and Blaise has decided he wishes for something new for Fleur's wedding.

Daphne has decided that, given her family's alliances, she would be best not to come to Fleur's wedding to the best-looking Weasley. Instead, she will spend that weekend with Susan, and Blaise will accompany Belle as her plus-one.

The third and most important reason is that they must meet La Toulousaine - Daphne's grandmother.

Belle has heard great things of Madame Méline Greengrass, the only member of Daphne's family who has welcomed Susan. She and Blaise have no intention of giving Madame Méline even an inch, but Daphne is excited to finally introduce them to her grandmother. Madame Méline traditionally summers in her native Toulouse for the sake of her health, or they would have met her sooner. That absence is making them both suspicious, but for Daphne's sake, they are doing their best to be enthusiastic.

Maman and Madame Sofia meet them on Rue des Brȗlés, in a comically chic little coffee shop. They're sitting close at a round table, their heads bowed together, and Belle frowns.

Blaise catches her eye, and she feels very silly all over again. This is somehow worse than not realising that Daphne and Susan were seeing one another, if only because Maman has never hidden her feelings about anything from Belle in her life, even when it would have been kinder to do so.

"They make _such_ a pretty couple," Daphne says, to Amand's murmured agreement. "Have they been seeing one another long?"

"I don't believe they officially are," Blaise admits. "But I know Mama very much enjoys Madame Juno's company, and they have a great deal in common."

"Wealthy widows," Anatole sighs, nudging them all forwards once they have their brooms tucked into the neat little bag Daphne has spelled with some sort of Extension Charm. "They flock together like swans - beautiful, and unwelcoming to strangers."

"Don't be unkind, amour," Amand scolds him. "Happiness can only make your sister sweeter, and we all know that such a thing would be… Not _un_ welcome."

"That is Bellona's mother you're talking about!"

"And he is not wrong," Belle points out, returning Maman's wave with one of her own. "But don't say it where she can hear, petit oncle, or she will skin you alive."

Blaise drifts forward to meet his mama, and Maman glides forward to greet Belle. Then Maman and Madame Sofia come together to greet Daphne.

Bellona and Blaise try to pass their handkerchiefs to Daph once their mothers release her. Belle's is blue, patterned with little yellow birds, and Blaise's is bright white linen - Daphne takes both with a watery smile.

* * *

La Toulousaine has the same bright-fair hair as Daphne, shining in the shade of the boldly red parasol over her head. She also has Daphne's narrow shoulders and elegant poise, and the same taste in bright coral-pink lipstick. Her sunglasses are the same old-fashioned style that Grand-mère favours, and the scarf around her neck is patterned, straight from the '40s and still stylish.

Honestly, to think that everyone in England still wears the same kind of robes they wore before la Belle Époque. Seeing Daphne's grandmother, Belle understands how Daph managed to escape such dire bad taste.

"'Lo, Nana," Daphne says, the Welsh lilt that is usually hidden under her careful, frosty sardonicism at school coming through in her nervousness. "Missed me?"

"Hello, cariad," Madame Méline says, rising smoothly and wrapping Daphne up in the same sort of embrace Belle expects from Ukki. They linger for a long while, rocking just a little from side to side. "Oh, Daphne, _hello._ "

"Hello," Daphne says, tearful and thick-voiced again, and Belle tugs Maman and the others aside to claim tables enough for all of them. Daphne has been worrying herself sick all week for fear that her grandmother had not been sincere in wanting to meet with her, and Belle is sick with relief that she was - Blaise's shoulders have slumped, so he must feel the same.

Blaise settles with his arm over the back of his mother's chair, and despite how closely he resembles what photos Belle has seen of his father, no one could deny that he is Madame Sofia's son. Something in their ease, their comfort in their beauty, their elegant calm, it speaks of a great closeness and comfort and calm in one another's company.

Belle wonders what Blaise sees when he looks at her sitting beside Maman.

Amand waves down a waiter while Daphne and Madame Méline linger, tangled together, and he orders ice water and a bottle - or two, apparently - of sauvignon blanc to serve as an aperitif. Anatole and Maman are dissecting the menu with Madame Sofia's help, and Blaise is keeping as watchful an eye on Daph as Belle is.

"I think," he says, so softly that Belle almost misses it, "that we may have been more worried about La Toulousaine than we needed to be."

"Mm," Belle agrees. "What is it Professor Sinistra used to say? Fail to prepare, prepare to fail."

"Quite."

They sip their ice water, and Maman and Anatole devolve into bickering with Madame Sofia, championing steak tartare against whatever govyzhyi yazyk is.

"I spend too much time in Belle's company to slander steak tartare, Mama," Blaise laughs when asked. "Let's order something else - when in Paris, I suppose."

They order a sharing dish of escargots, crudités with a light vinaigrette, caviar as a sop to Madame Sofia, and a sampling of whatever amuses-bouches the chef can create, simply to satisfy Amand's ravenous curiosity. There is more ice water, and a slightly sweeter white wine, as well as a light red - a Grenache, the waiter explains when Belle and Blaise admit their ignorance.

Daphne is still talking quietly with her grandmother, and Belle is glad of it. Already she can see that Daphne's hands are more still than they have been since that damned Howler arrived from her parents.

They eat. They order more food. Daphne and La Toulousaine talk.

* * *

"So," Madame Méline says, settling the expansive spread of her royal blue skirt around herself when finally she and Daphne join them at the table. "You are the friends. I am sorry I could not meet you before, but I am glad nonetheless that my Daphne has you."

Her French rolls in the same slightly odd way as Daphne's, and Belle wonders if perhaps it's so many years spent in Wales - will her own accent be tainted if she chooses to live in London? She supposes that it will, and is surprised that the thought does not worry her as it might have done even recently.

"We're only as good to Daphne as she deserves," Blaise says firmly, "and only as good to her as she's been to us."

"I can never repay Daphne for all the love she has given to me," Belle says. "But I will happily go to war for her, if that helps at all."

Daphne is pointedly ignoring them, speaking determinedly to Maman and Madame Sofia about what she'd like from Mlle. Lelong as if that will hide the flush of pink in her cheeks.

"She is the best person I know," Madame Méline says proudly, easing back in her chair and accepting a glass of wine from Amand. "But even so, she has needed good friends around her, and has found them in the two of you."

* * *

Madame Méline walks a little ahead of them, deep in conversation with Anatole about something Belle can't quite overhear, and with every step her soles flash red - Belle would not have thought to remark on such a thing, once upon a time, but it seems never to have caught on in England as it did in France. Perhaps they didn't enjoy the witch-hunts as much as the French witches did, and so they don't commemorate the tickle of flames licking their heels in every pair of shoes they wear.

Belle is the only de Poitiers who's ever worn red-soled shoes, because she is the only de Poitiers who's ever used a wand. She wonders if there have been many Blacks who married into French families, and if she might find some kind of connection if she looks back through the family tree.

She could always ask Phineas Nigellus, but to do that, she would need to speak to him.

 **III.**

Mlle. Lelong's shop is probably Belle's favourite place in Paris - it always smells a little of lemon and mint, and the light is somehow always just a little golden. Mannequins displaying her prêt range are arranged tastefully in elegantly arched alcoves around the walls, and between the alcoves are racks of fabric samples. Belle has always gravitated toward the silks, particularly the damasks, but Anatole and Maman always nudge her toward the velvets.

Today, there is a discreet sign pointing up the spiral staircase, advertising Mlle. Balmain's autumn-winter collection, and Madame Sofia disappears in that direction as soon as they're through the door with Madame Méline in hot pursuit.

"Not joining them, Blaise?" Daphne asks, linking her arm through Belle's and looking around with thoughtful, hungry eyes. "I saw you salivating over those new Balmain cloaks in Couture, don't think I didn't."

"I've grown four inches since last year," Blaise points out, rolling his eyes. "I'm more in need of a new school cloak than I am a dress cloak, no matter how much Mademoiselle Balmain's use of pleating intrigues me."

"I'm thinking pleating for my school cloak, actually," Belle says, already testing a dark green silk brocaded in charcoal grey between her fingers. "Who will say a word to me? Snape? No. Professor Slug will stand with me if he dares."

"Slug _does_ appreciate good tailoring," Daphne agrees, holding a length of exquisite tourmaline chiffon across her shoulder so that it highlights her bright eyes and delicate flush. "Did you know he recommended a tailor to Pansy because he felt that her cloak was giving a bad impression of Slytherin?"

"And yet Draco's being a Death Eater wasn't," Blaise drawls, rolling his eyes again. "Yes, Belle, I think pleating would be nice - I don't think this is a year for half-measures, somehow."

Mlle. Lelong herself appears from the back room, summoned by one of the innumerable apprentices making themselves busy around the shop - perhaps because Belle, Maman, and Anatole are all dressed in de Poitiers monochrome, and that paired with Maman and Anatole's bright hair marks them unmistakably for who they are. There is no tradesperson in le 21ième who would risk the loss of de Poitiers custom, not when they as a family are so notoriously easy to part from their money - a terrible trait, in a family of bankers.

"Ah, Juno," Mlle. Lelong says, taking Maman's hands and kissing both her cheeks. "Have you another splendid challenge for me, my friend?"

"No sea-silk today, Aurelia," Maman says, laughing her perfect, silver-bell laugh. "Unless you count making something tolerable of my Belle's school uniform a challenge."

"Little Bellona," Mlle. Lelong says, stretching up on her toes to kiss Belle's cheeks. "Come, come - ah, and your friends as well, all of you are most welcome, come!"

* * *

Belle gets her pleated cloak - deep knife pleats that fall from the yoke, and a high, cossack-style collar embroidered with tiny silver fleur-de-lys to match the silver fastenings. She also has long black leather gloves with silver clasps, and will visit M. Blanchard for new boots to match.

She has both trousers and skirt this year, black again for the trousers but the abominable uniform grey for the skirt - although rather than the ugly little straight knee-skirts or the heinous box pleat _things_ everyone else wears, she has opted for a simple A-line with a panel of narrow knife pleats on the left hip, so from the front it appears a similar shape to Ernie's kilts.

Daphne's uniform is a sleeker, more professional version even of Bellona's, with a narrower, longer skirt, and a wide revere collar on her blouses - although given her intention to wear silk scarves even more elaborate than Belle's own in place of her tie, that might draw more censure than the skirt, or Belle's with their five-inch deep pearl-buttoned cuffs and balloon sleeves, but Daph has a way of wearing her clothes that draws attention, and so - who knows.

Blaise, of course, will look beautiful, because he always does. His trouser legs are slimmer than anyone else's will be, and his shirts have been chosen to suit an Ascot in place of a tie.

"There just isn't the same room for expression in men's clothing," he sighs, taking the bags from Belle's hands with gentle, irresistible force. "The lining of my cloak is all well and good, but I won't be wearing that most of the time - I'll have to see what Monsieur Blanchard can do for me."

Belle will need shoes for the weddings as well - her dancing slippers will do for Fleur's wedding, of course, because half the guests will be French and so there will be a great deal of proper dancing. Remus and Dora's wedding will not be such a grand affair, and so she will see what M. Blanchard has to offer that might pair well with the culotte suit Mlle. Balmain convinced her of. Something simple, given the richness of the gold-shining-on-white silk moire of the suit.

"I think boots with nice, thick soles are in order," Daphne says firmly, steering Belle away from an elegant wedge with satin stitching and instead towards what looks like an unpadded Quidditch boot. "I fear we may need something very practical, this year."

Blaise's new boots are dragonskin, a violent shade of green that even his mother cannot entirely excuse, but they have thick, sturdy soles, and lace halfway up his calf - practical boots, for what is threatening to be a most impractical year.

* * *

 **(c**

It's unusually sunny, and Harry's been left with an unusually small list of jobs that need doing. He's parked himself on his bedspread in the back garden, with a big bottle of orange pop in a bucket of ice and _Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against The Dark Arts, vol. III_ propped up on his pillow. His wand, even though he has no intention of using it, is tucked behind his ear.

He repurposes it as a bookmark when the shadow of an owl falls across his book.

"Hello, you," he says, sitting up so Blanchefleur can settle on his shoulder to preen his hair a little. "How was your flight from London, eh? Belle treating you alright?"

She chirrups cheerfully, plucking a knot out of Harry's hair by the roots. She still hasn't figured out that just because his hair is dark like Belle's doesn't mean he's got feathers like Belle's, but she'll learn.

"Can I have my letter now, then?" he asks, reaching inside his pillowcase for the little parcel of owl treats he keeps in there for Hedwig. "C'mere, gimme a look you mad bint-"

Blanchefleur reacts about as well as Hedwig does to insults, which is to say not well at all. She nips his ear sharper than usual, but she also scoots down his arm so he can get at the bright green ribbon Belle's used to secure her letter and parcel in place.

"Go on, go mad," he says, scattering some of the treats down on his duvet for her to enjoy. "Let's see what Belle has to say, will we?"

"Who's Belle?"

"'Lo, Dudders," Harry says, sitting cross-legged and not even bothering to roll his eyes when Blanchefleur hops up onto his knee. "Having a nice time?"

"Asked you a question, Potter."

"Remember my godfather's daughter?" Harry asks. "The mass-murderer's daughter, the one who can throw fireballs? That's Belle."

Dudley performs the most unexpected act of his life by sitting down on the grass opposite Harry.

"What's she writing to you for, then?" he asks. "I 'spect she's mad."

"Nah," Harry disagrees, picking at the very complicated knot Belle's used to keep the parcel closed. "She's very sensible when she hasn't got feathers growing through her hair. Her mother's a Veela. S'why she can throw fireballs."

The parcel eventually opens to reveal a green glass bottle with a gold stopper, and a pair of glasses that look absolutely nothing like his own. They've got expensive-looking frames which look suspiciously fashionable in the same way as Belle's shiny boots, and dark-tinted lenses.

He opens the letter.

"She your girlfriend?" Dudley asks, reaching for Harry's bottle of pop and retreating only because Blanchefleur flares her wings and hisses. "What's with the bird?"

"Belle's owl," Harry says absently, trying very hard not to break the wax seal on the letter because Belle always knows, somehow, and is disappointed. "Because she sent me a letter."

 _Chèr Harry,_

 _I have told you to wear sunscreen but I KNOW that you are not wearing it, Harry Potter! Just because you have dark skin does NOT mean that you will not burn. I even had Blaise test it, and he says that it is very nice and smells manly._

 _And use the sunglasses. PTO for the charm to match them to your prescription._

 _PTO also for the recipe for Amand's cherry cakes, as requested._

 _WEAR THE SUNSCREEN, HARRY._

 _Until August!  
_ _Belle_

"Oh," Harry says. "Sunscreen. She did tell me to wear that."

"You're a darkie," Dudley says. "Why d'you need sunscreen?"

Harry applies his sunscreen and ignores Dudley, and then he gives Blanchefleur some more treats. He's got a boxful upstairs, so Hedwig can't complain.

"Why the interest, Dudders?" Harry asks. "You fancy her? She's a witch, you know. A _French_ witch."

"Only one of your fancy friends to write to you this summer," Dudley says. "She your girlfriend?"

"Nah," Harry says. "But if you try to hit her owl one more time-"

Dudley howls when Blanchefleur's beak sinks hard into his hand. Harry just hopes she doesn't develop a taste for human blood.

* * *

 **IV.**

They've made a little progress in the garden, but given the taste for actively dangerous plants that apparently ran through Belle's ancestors, it's fighting them every step of the way. Belle's particular favourite has been the batch of over-ripe Mandrakes they found in what they thought was an overrun cabbage patch, which left all three of them unconscious on the horrible, yellowed grass until Anatole flew up above the range of the screaming and burned the whole lot to ash.

There has been a great deal of burning. There's really nothing else for most of the flora, especially not when it crisps away to reveal equally violent fauna. Belle's not been able to wear half her rings since they got home from Paris, thanks to all the bites and stings and clawings she's taken to her hands in their fight to give Daphne a garden in which to garden, rather than a battlefield on which to fight for her life.

Belle is throwing fireballs at the base of a horrible creeping vine that is trying very hard to strangle poor Blaise - who is trying equally hard to kill it with a set of shears that even Belle is wary of - when Daphne emerges from the house in her good cloak and her flying cap, with her rucksack on her back and her broom over her shoulder.

"It's Su," she says, once she's close enough for Belle to see the tears trailing down her cheeks, which for once are pale, instead of pink like a porcelain doll. "Oh, it's Su, her auntie Amelia - Belle, I can't stand it, I can't-"

Belle launches the biggest fireball she can muster at the vine, and it loosens its hold on Blaise just in time for him to catch Daphne when she stumbles. Belle continues to burn the damned thing until it gives up, and once it's safe, she turns back to Daphne and Blaise.

"He came for her himself," she sobs. "Oh, he- and Su's letter, she said they almost couldn't- couldn't recognise her- I have to go to her right away, I'm sorry I can't go to Remus' wedding, Belle, but they've made the house Unplottable so I have to fly, tell Dora I'm sorry-"

"Don't be silly," Blaise says. "Remus will understand entirely, you know that he will - go to Susan, Daph. Belle and I will look after everything else."

"Tell Susan to send for us immediately if there is anything at all we can do to help," Belle says, looping her arm around Daphne's waist. "And tell her that we are thinking of her - we are only ever a letter away. Oh, _Daph."_

Amand arrives home with the Prophet ten minutes after Daphne's departure, and Madam Amelia Bones of the Wizengamot's unfortunate and untimely death is right there on the front page.

There is no mention of Lord Voldemort.

 **V.**

Nymphadora Tonks, as was, becomes Dora Tonks-Lupin on a damp July afternoon. It happens in a tiny stone chapel in Scotland, not terribly far from Ernie's beloved Loch Ness, and there are not so many people there as Belle thinks Remus and Dora deserve.

Belle suspects that Dora's been Mrs. Tonks-Lupin at heart for quite some time now, and says as much to distract herself from the more melancholy thoughts of loved ones absent. It is a suspicion Ted Tonks is only too glad to confirm.

"Oh, she's been pathetic about him for _ages,"_ he confides to her and Blaise over a glass of firewhiskey. "But he's been pathetic back for just as long, according to Arthur, so it's not so bad."

"It's been awful," Arthur Weasley says, taking the bottle of whiskey from Ted and filling his own glass up to the brim. "Merlin's pants, neither one of them could pluck up the courage to make a go of it until _my_ son gets mauled by a werewolf."

"Idiots," Ted agrees, with great feeling, and Blaise breaks the mood by starting to giggle.

"I'm sorry," he says, "I truly am, but Professor Lupin being cast as a lovestruck teenager when half the girls in the school were pining after him… it's too much."

"After _Remus?"_ Arthur Weasley thunders, clutching his glass to his chest in horror before pausing thoughtfully. "I suppose he is quite good-looking, in a skinny, bookish sort of way. And he's a quarter the age of any other teacher in the school, save for Severus."

"And none of us has such bad taste as to pine for Professor Snape," Belle rushes to assure them. "Ugh, _imagine."_

"Nothing but true love will induce that man to use shampoo," Ted says, philosophically, "so I think someone ought to bite the bullet, for everyone else's sake."

Belle is unsure what a bullet is, but she has _no_ intention of biting anything.

* * *

Dora's dress is a simple thing, with a swing skirt that comes to mid-calf with a low-cut back, and only the top-most layer is white. Underneath that layer of beautiful chiffon is a hideous gold self-striped satin, which really belongs more on an antique chair than it does on a bride.

Under the skirt, Dora reveals, is a pair of knee-length shorts in the same horrible gold. She is also wearing combat boots. In bright, patent turquoise.

Remus' suit is at least well made, even if it is a terrible heather-blue tweed with a tie to match, and Belle is so happy to see them happy that she has resigned herself to accept their utter lack of taste. At least she will be able to appoint herself godmother to their children, for her own sake and for Andromeda's. No child deserves to be dressed as badly as Remus and Dora dress themselves. So really, it is not so bad, until-

"Oh, look at that!" Dora crows, tugging at the leg of Belle's culottes. "Trousers pretending to be a skirt - just like mine!"

The Order of the Phoenix has shown out well today, along with a handful of Dora's closest friends. It is a small wedding, but not necessarily a small gathering, and more than a few of those present seem to share Remus and Dora's interesting taste.

Of everyone on hand only Dromeda, Blaise, and Kingsley Shacklebolt know to wince when Dora considers the _thing_ that she is wearing the same as Belle's suit.

* * *

Remus pulls Belle out to dance - badly - while the party is winding down.

"I'm so glad you could come, Belley," he says, and it does not hurt. No one has called her that since Papa's death, not to her face, not even Dromeda in her letters.

Because it is Remus, though, it does not hurt.

"It wouldn't have been the same without you," he says, giving her hand a squeeze for emphasis. "I know it means the world to Dora, too - she wanted you to be a bridesmaid, but we'd have looked a little imbalanced without my best man."

"I wish Harry could have been here, too," she admits. "I know it would have meant a great deal both to him and to you. He loves you very much, Remus."

"There'll be other weddings," Remus says, shrugging. They all are so conscious of Harry's safety now, so aware of how little Voldemort fears them without Dumbledore on hand to dissuade him, that Remus hadn't dared invite Harry - it's sad, but Belle understands. Harry will too, even if she knows how he hates missing things for his safety, on which he puts such a mean value. "Weasley weddings, which you won't want to come to."

"I like the Weasleys very much," Belle says. "Just perhaps not all at the same time."

"Blaise tells me your mother did a lovely job of the house," he says, struggling against a smile - everyone likes the Weasleys eventually, but they _are_ a great deal to cope with when they are all together. It does not do to admit such things, though, and Remus is far too polite to ever press the issue. "Perhaps Dora and I should visit, see it for ourselves."

"Oh, please do, Remus!" She can picture them now, curled up on the big deep-seated couch Maman installed by the hearth in the kitchen with a firewhiskey for her and a Butterbeer for him. It's so cosy now, with the flagstones scrubbed almost white, and the sun spilling in through the half-moon windows that are level with the ugly grass in the garden, and she would love to have more of her family to visit. "We would be so glad to have you both!"

" _We?_ Surely you haven't got Ernie McMillan on hand all summer-"

"Shut up, old man," she warns him. "I don't remember ever mentioning Ernie to you, so I'd like to know who's telling tales-"

"Well, if not Ernie," he says, "I'll assume it's Blaise and Daphne, shall I?"

"You shall," she says, scowling as best she can while so happy. "Or, well, just Blaise and I for the rest of the summer - Daphne is staying with the Boneses for a time, and then her grandmother wants her in Toulouse for a few days. Something about legalities, I don't know for certain."

Remus' face, surely sore from smiling so hard all day long, folds into a frown.

"I wish we had more time together," he says. "I wish things weren't like this for you and Harry and the others. I wish we still had- ah, well. I'm sure you wish it too."

"He would be so happy for you," Belle promises, as gently as she knows how. Dromeda and Dora, Maman and Professor McGonagall, they all mourn Papa, but only Remus and Harry mourn him as cut-deep as Belle does, she thinks. "He would have teased you constantly, but he would have been delighted."

"He would have _hated_ young Ernie," Remus says, his smile returning and turning gleeful. "I've been very restrained, I think, but your dad-"

" _Ugh,"_ she groans. "Harry and Anatole have been bad enough, I would rather not think about how terrible Papa might have been. Harry has been insufferable _,_ Remus! And I cannot even tease him about Ginny, because he'll think I'm being mean because Ginny and I don't like one another."

"You've got a great deal in common, you know," Remus says, which Hermione keeps telling her but she still doesn't believe. "But don't worry - I'm sure everyone else has more than made up for your lack, Belley."

"Papa would have been really awful," she says. "About Ernie, I mean. Worse even to me than he would have been to _you."_

"Yes, well," he says. "He loved you more, Belle, so it stands to reason."

They dance on a little. Molly and Arthur Weasley are dancing as well, and Dromeda and Ted, her resting her head atop his. Dora and Fol-Oeil are busily fox-trotting to a waltz, and Kingsley Shacklebolt, easily the best-dressed person of everyone here, even Belle herself, is leading one of Tonks' interesting Auror friends around the floor in a dance so immaculate that even Ukki and Grand-mère might be hard set to equal it.

"I think he might have been worst to Harry," Remus says thoughtfully. "Just because Ginny has red hair, really, even though she's even less like Lily than Harry's like James - especially because Sirius was fond of her. She'd have joined in, probably."

 **VI.**

 _Dearest Bellona,_

 _I ask you, one final time - come home. Please, child, please come home to Valence, where you will be safe. If not to Valence, then allow your uncle to take you to Rennes, and if not Rennes, then go to your grandfather. Please, little one, there is nothing to be ashamed of in retreating to safety. Let us take care of you. We have indulged you and allowed you your time in England, but that time is at an end, child. Come home. Come home to where you belong, Bellona. The world is a dangerous place, nowhere more so than your beloved England just now. The world is a dangerous place, for none so much as for the likes of you._

 _Come home, little one. For your mother's sake, if not for mine._

 _With love,_

 _Grand-mère_

* * *

 _Ma petite,_

 _Whatever nonsense your grandmother said in her last letter - ignore it. You are an adult now, sweet girl, and I know what you will do. You will remain where you are until it is time for little Fleur's wedding, and then you will go to school. All of us who know you know this._

 _But please, Belle. My Belle. I know I have not always been the mother you wanted, and I have not been the mother you deserved, either. I would ask two things of you._

 _Remember that I love you._

 _Be brave, as you always are._

 _I am never more than a letter away, and Blanchefleur knows her way home better than you do at this stage._

 _When you are ready, come home to me._

 _Maman_

* * *

 _Black,_

 _Bring your chess set to the wedding. I know Greengrass has some sort of bag that can hide it because she told Hermione about it and she's been using hers for her books ever since._

 _Mum's confiscated every board in the house and for once, we can't find them. We're all going mad._

 _Harry got here safe and sound. Tell you everything over a couple of drinks. Don't be late, and bring the walnut buns._

 _Ron_

 **VII.**

Unlike Remus and Dora's, the morning of Fleur's wedding to the good-looking Weasley - Bill, Fleur reminds her, when she slips into the dressing room with flowers and kisses and a charm of good luck - is beautiful and sunny. Belle makes a point of kissing first Fleur, then Gabrielle, then Madame Apolline, and finally Madame Ophélie, who is one of les Melusines and so is dressed in shifting layers of blue-and-lighter-blue chiffon, with her hair - the same gossamer white as Grand-mère's, although it would _never_ do to compare the sister of La Melusine to La Valentinoise - gathered so elegantly at her nape that Belle is a little jealous.

"So," Madame Ophélie says. "You are the arsonist."

"And you the rebel, madame," Belle returns, dipping the slightest of curtsies. Belle knows Veela, and she knows how prickly their pride is - les Melusines more than any other, if only because she is a de Poitiers. "It is an honour."

"You're a very pretty girl," Madame Ophélie says. "Good. Pretty enough even for sea-silk. You have excellent taste."

"A gift from my mother, " Belle admits. "And perfect for dancing, too."

"Oh, thank heavens," Madame Ophélie sighs. "Do you know, I did not think we would have anyone outside the family who could dance?"

And abruptly it does not matter that Belle is a de Poitiers, not when a greater scourge has been identified - Muggle, witch, or Veela, there's no Frenchwoman who doesn't dread an Englishman on a dancefloor.

* * *

"I would have had you as a bridesmaid, I think," Fleur says. "But Mémé might have killed me."

"You have enough trouble on your hands with Ginny Weasley, I think," Belle says, and kisses Fleur's cheek once more for luck. "You are happy?"

"As happy as possible during a war," Fleur promises. "And you, Belle? With your strange arrangements and your Scotsman?"

"As happy as possible, during a war."

Fleur kisses Belle's cheek this time, and it seems less for luck and more - just in case.

 **VIII.**

The wedding is beautiful. The dresses, the suits, the _music,_ oh, Belle would not have expected such elegance from the Weasleys. Everything is precisely as beautiful as Fleur deserves, even her beau, and Belle could not be happier for her, for _t_ _hem._ Her heart is heavy with how perfect a day it is, and she thinks it perfectly normal that she begins to cry a little.

Blaise discreetly passes her his gleaming linen handkerchief when she begins to sniffle, and does not mention it when she ducks behind the sweep of his exquisite electric blue robe so she can fix her make-up in her little compact mirror. He even lets her dig through his robes to return her mirror to his inner pocket.

"If you're this bad for Fleur, what will you do if Daph marries her Su?" he asks, nudging her hip with his own.

"I will be too busy being maid-of-honour when Daph marries her Su," Belle says, taking a mint from the little tin Blaise keeps in one of his other pockets. "I won't cry at all that day, not until all the work is done."

"I told Daph I'd give her away, after the Howler," he confesses, looking very slightly embarrassed by his typical, unthinking kindness. Belle wishes to be as genuinely kind as him, someday. "I think Madame Méline might object, though, don't you?"

"I would say that you could give me away, but Anatole and Maman are already fighting about that."

"And your grandfather," Blaise agrees. "They'll also fight whoever you marry, of course, for the honour of having you."

* * *

Harry's suit is inoffensive, and quite beautifully cut - she sees Hermione's hand in that. His dancing, of course, is _d_ _eeply_ offensive, but she's missed him very much so she won't call him on it.

Yet.

"I'm sorry for Hedwig," she says softly, because today is for celebration but it will ring hollow if they ignore their losses - Grand-mère and Invidia always remember their sister, Feronia, on her anniversary, even though it shares a date with Grand-mère's birthday. "And for old Fol-Oeil. He was a good man. She was a good owl."

"And George had a good ear," Harry agrees with a small, thin smile. "I heard about Susan's aunt, too - any word from Daphne since?"

"Very little - they've closed ranks, and they're keeping Daphne on the inside. At least she is safe there."

Their dance comes to an end, and Belle links her arm through Harry's to stop him from running away. He's such a bad dancer that he owes her at least another two rounds, and even without that, he's been avoiding her all day.

"Belle-"

"Not until we have a little talk."

Blaise is keeping Hermione occupied, locking her into some sort of very intense discussion with Viktor Krum - probably about the recent trade deal with the Danube Bloc that the Ministry has shot down. Blaise has been furious about the whole thing for weeks, and it will do him good to talk about it with someone who actually understands it, and Hermione has so many opinions about everything that she will keep the conversation going far beyond its natural bounds.

Ron is busily trapped with Dora and Lee Jordan, waving his arms very expressively, which means that he is talking about Quidditch. Belle loves Quidditch, but she will never quite understand Ron's enduring passion, untarnished even by his beloved Cannons' consistently abysmal performance - but perhaps that is easy for Belle to say when Racing Rhône have won the league at home six of the last eight years.

All of this together means that Belle has Harry all to herself for a few minutes at least. It's more than she's been able to scrounge all day, and will give her more insight than his dire attempts at letter-writing have so far this summer.

"Tell me," she says, because there is something to tell. She just isn't sure that she wants to hear it. "Tell me how I can help."

"You can't," he says, with another of those thin smiles. "Best you can do is know nothing about it, Belle. Safer that way."

"Well, I'm richer than you," she says, "so there must be _something_ I can do to help. Money is so helpful in trying times."

That makes him laugh, just a little, and she can feel him soften against her side.

"There are things I have to do, Belle," he says. "Things that I have to do alone. So, thank you, but- thank you."

"Well." She considers this carefully - there has to be _some_ help she can offer him. "The house, at least. Make use of the house, if you need it. But- but let me know if you're using it. Turn the door green. Put a scarf on the doorhandle. Just don't dirty my carpets."

"Wasn't it only at Christmas that you made sure I couldn't use the house?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. Or perhaps squinting. He has had the same glasses as long as she's known him, so either seems possible.

"I said you couldn't use it without my permission," she corrects him. "But - please, Harry. You are not alone. Please remember that."

 **IX.**

People disappear and return all day, and Belle is sleepy with food and dancing and smiling, leaning against Blaise's shoulder, when an unexpected guest arrives. The pretty silver lynx speaks with Kingsley Shacklebolt's voice, and in the brace of heartbeats it takes for the shock to fade and panic to set in, Belle has time to think _I am so glad Daphne is not here._

"Run," Remus says, pushing at Belle's shoulders. "Belle, _go!"_

"No," she says, as people flee and others stand, pulling her wand from the holster on her thigh. She feels just as she did when Draco brought the Death Eaters into the school - ready to stand between whoever means harm and those who need shielding, and terrified out of her mind "I have to be brave."

"You have to be _gone,"_ Remus insists. "Blaise, take her. Take her _now."_

"I can help! Remus, I've helped before-"

"Not this time," Blaise says, taking her firmly by the hand. "There are people who need us more than the Weasleys, and we have to be alive to help them - _now,_ Belle."

"Blaise, _no-"_

The kitchen of Grimmauld Place has never been so unwelcome a sight. Kreacher is startled out of his hovel under the sink - not so rank, after Maman's cleaning and the little gifts Belle has been leaving out for him - by the clatter they make, and Blaise doesn't let go of her.

"What have you _done?"_ she demands, pushing away from him. "We have to help them-"

"Half of Dumbledore's Order is at that wedding," Blaise says, taking her by the shoulders and staring hard into her face. "They know what they're doing, Belle, and most of them are purebloods - they won't be killed. _You will."_

"I won't, they _wouldn't-"_

"Kingsley Shacklebolt said that they've toppled the _fucking_ Ministry, Bellona!" he shouts. "They murdered the Minister and installed their puppet, just like they murdered Albus Dumbledore! This isn't school, Belle. These people will murder you for sport because they think of you as an animal. You need to do everything you can to stay alive, because they _want you dead!"_

All the noise has drawn Amand and Anatole from upstairs, but they stay in the kitchen door.

"You've never shouted at me before," is all Belle can manage. "Not even once."

"You've never been so stupid before," he returns. "Belle, _think!_ These people are worse even than Umbridge was. You think you understand them because of Draco and the others, but you don't. You _don't!"_

"I know about evil men, Blaise-"

"Not like this," he snaps. "I don't either, not really, but I've seen their like at home - small-minded men and women who think anyone different, anyone of mixed heritage or anyone not pureblooded, they think anyone not like them needs to be hunted, just like the Death Eaters here. The only difference at home is that my mother and her friends make sure-"

"But I could have _helped!"_

"Shut _up,_ Belle, and stop trying to argue with me! _Listen,_ for once! Remus said to run, and he's never once doubted you. That should tell you just how dangerous these people are."

Blaise is crying. Belle has never seen him cry before.

"I know you're going to insist on going back to school even now, even _knowing_ that they'll hurt you there, but please, Belle, for me - at least come away from here until the start of term. Gather up our things, bring Daph's as well, and go to Mama's house in Belgravia. No one knows where that is except us. Anatole, talk to her, make her understand!"

"I think we should go home," Anatole says, looking uneasy. "I know your grandmother asked you to come home, Belle, and I know she suggested Rennes, or that you go to Isä and Aleksi. If the English Minister is dead, Bellona - you are not safe here! You must come away."

"I must do nothing of the sort," she says, slipping her arm around Blaise's waist. "We will take our things, and we will go to Madame Sofia's house, but I _am_ going back to school. Blaise is right. This- we must be smart. We will go to Madame Sofia's, and I will send Blanchefleur to Dromeda so we can understand more of what is going on."

"You have your trunks packed?"

"We do," Belle promises. "Anything we have not packed we can do without."

Anatole nods, reaching behind him for Amand's hand.

"Ten minutes, chouette," he says. "Then- can you and Blaise Apparate us all to his maman's house?"

"Between us? Yes, of course."

"Daphne's little bag," Blaise says. "Our brooms our already in it, it won't take much to put the trunks in as well, and anything else we need to bring."

"Ten minutes," Anatole says. "And then we go to Sofia Nikolaevna's."

Belle looks down when Kreacher tugs on her robes.

"Would Mistress like a sandwich for her journey?"

The sandwich he offers is wrapped in an almost-clean dishcloth and smells awful.

"You are very kind, Kreacher," she tells him, smiling even so. "Can you make me a promise, Kreacher? Please?"

"Mistress can ask anything she likes of Kreacher."

"If anyone comes to the house asking where we have gone," she says. "If Miss Narcissa or Miss Bellatrix, in particular, come here, looking for _anyone_ , you are not to tell them anything - if they come here and they try to hurt you, you are to come to _me,_ mon chèr, oui? Come to me if they threaten you, Kreacher."

"Yes, Mistress," Kreacher says, still tugging a little on her robes. "Mistress will be back?"

"As soon as I can, Kreacher. I promise you will not be left alone here for so long ever again. Could you please make sure all the windows are locked while we gather our things?"

He disappears with a damp crack. Belle and Blaise depart to pack, and Blaise has not let go of her hand by the time they reach the top of the stairs.

It rankles to leave her house - her _h_ _ome!_ \- but at least, if she is known to be away from home, it gives Mad Bella one less reason to come here and makes it just a little safer for Harry, if he needs it.

Actually-

"Kreacher?"

"Yes, Mistress?" The damp crack of his Apparating never fails to make her feel a little ill, but he's gotten very good at actually answering when she calls for him since she gave him her uncle's robes and started asking about Papa's family. There is nothing Kreacher loves as much as he loves talking about the Blacks.

"We may have guests while I am away," she says. "You remember Harry, Papa's godson? He and his friends may come to stay here. Please make sure that they are welcome, Kreacher. No calling Hermione a Mudblood. No calling Harry a half-breed."

"But _Mistress-"_

"Please, Kreacher," she says. "I try not to ask very much, but I ask this. Make Harry welcome, if he comes here, and do not tell anyone that he is here, or that he has been here."

Kreacher grumbles, but he nods. That will have to do.

* * *

 **(b**

"Merlin's arse," Ron says before he can catch himself, pinned to the bright cream wallpaper by Hermione's bony hip and Harry's bony shoulder. They've more than enough to worry about, but he's fairly sure they've let themselves into the wrong house, and that seems like a very immediate issue. "I thought we were going to-"

"This is Grimmauld Place," Harry says, locking the door behind them and slumping against it. "Belle's mum decorated as a birthday present."

This is more than just decorating, but so long as Harry's sure that this really is Sirius' house, Ron'll take him at his word.

They go to the kitchen. Hermione is still wearing her nice shoes, and the click of her heels on the flags seems to startle her.

"What if Bellona comes back?" Hermione asks. "She _lives_ here, Harry-"

"We talked earlier," Harry says. "I- we need to lie low until we're sure, but I think she'll move out. I know Blaise's mum has a house in London as well, Belle told me about it, and if not she's got both her grandparents. She'll be fine."

Ron decides to check anyway, and knocks on the master bedroom door before letting himself in.

Belle's good chess board is sitting on the bed, pink and grey and probably worth more than the Burrow.

 _Don't you dare break my chess set, Ron Weasley._

Well, that's him satisfied. He still has a look around, but the little notes on the bedroom doors just hammer home that Belle's gone, and she's left the house ready for them.

Harry's looking around the place with a strange look on his face when Ron comes back downstairs, and that's not really surprising. Harry hasn't been back here since Sirius died, and it must be difficult for it to look like an entirely different house.

* * *

 **X.**

Two days later, Belle Apparates to Diagon Alley and marches into Gringotts.

"Miss Black," says the handsome young goblin with the very modern platinum tie pin and collar tips. "You wish to make a withdrawal?"

"Mademoiselle de Poitiers," she corrects him. "Of Valence. And no, thank you, it is not a withdrawal I wish to enquire about."

His eyes are very bright behind his blue-lensed pince-nez.

"Bornog, mademoiselle," he says. "And whatever can I do for you this morning?"

"One banker to another, monsieur," she says. "What is Gringotts' policy on extra protections for one's vault?"

"That depends, mademoiselle," Bornog says.

"On?"

"Whether or not you care to record your protections in the ledgers, as procedure demands. There are so many little legalities around vault protection." His smile reminds her a little of Metis', when someone comes to Valence and tries to lie about the contents of their vault. "Of course, there are always loopholes. Not _everything_ has to go into the ledgers we share with the auditors."

"Oh, excellent," Belle says, delighted. "I will be doing a very great deal of cursing, monsieur, so I will want it recorded only in the _other_ ledgers. Ours are black, but since your legitimate ledgers are black, I would guess… The green?"

"Good eye, mademoiselle," Bornog says, holding out a hand for her key. "Shall we?"

Dromeda warned her that Bellatrix and Draco's mother might try to access the Black vault in pursuit of whatever terrible things their ancestors had stashed there, but here is one more little thing Belle can do to help Harry and their allies - and one more way she can prove herself a Black. She has all _kinds_ of nasty ideas.


End file.
